Greg Miller, staff writer

Augsburg women’s soccer had a fantastic season last year. They tied St. Thomas as co-champions of the MIAC regular season, took second place in the MIAC playoffs, and made it to the second round of the NCAA playoffs. 

Augsburg graduated five players last season. They will have to find ways to replace the goal-scoring tandem of MIAC record holder Ashely St. Aubin and Gabriela Encarnacion who scored 29 of the Auggies 48 goals last season. Also gone this year are two players who were active in the back: Jada Olson and goalkeeper Emily Chapman who led the MIAC in conference play save percentage last season. 

On the attack, the Auggies will look for sophomores Megan Howard, Tess Ryan and Kennedy Pounds who all netted a few goals in limited playtime. Howard scored 4 goals in 627 minutes while Ryan and Pounds scored 2 apiece in 299 and 160 minutes respectively.

On the backline the Auggies do retain four players who were key to team success last year. Senior Claire Popp, Juniors Jen Masello and Molly Conners and Sophomore Rachel Montgomery all recorded over 1500 minutes in defense for the Auggies, who were third in the MIAC with a .44 goals-against average in conference play last year. As for in the net, the Auggies will be having to decide between sophomore Payton Gutenberg who made three appearances last year, and newcomers Aspen Brockhouse and Isabelle Shuster.

The Auggie team has lost a lot of talent since last year but still has a solid core of players. With Coach Mike Navarre entering his 22^nd season, the Auggies will need a few players to step up to fill the roles on the attack as well as in the net in order to repeat their last year’s success, and hopefully win the MIAC Championship.