NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. – Westminster College women's soccer squad is off to an impressive start to the 2022 season.
The Titans tallied a recent 2-1 Presidents' Athletic Conference conquest at Allegheny College in Meadville to improve to 2-0 in the circuit and 6-2-1 overall.
"We are where we are: A solid team, and we'll probably make a run for the playoffs, so we'll see what happens. But we're doing well right now," understated veteran Titans' taskmaster Girish Thakar.
Equally understated by Thakar is the fact the recent win enabled him to surpass the 500-win career milestone. Collectively, he has coached Westminster men's and women's teams to a 501-318-76 won-lost ledger (63.4%).
Westminster's women have been winning with stingy defense, great goalkeeping, and not overwhelming, but opportunistic offense. The Titans have tallied an aggregate 18-6 advantage in goals scored.
Thakar related, "The majority of our players are coming back from last year. We had a young team last year made up of seven or eight freshmen who were starting. So the majority of them are back now as sophomores. But it's still a young team – one senior, one junior, and the rest are sophomores who are starting right now.
"But just very happy with the way they're performing right now," admitted Thakar, who is in his 21st season with Westminster's women's program and has devoted a quarter-century coaching Westminster men's soccer.
In his previous 2 decades coaching Westminster women his TItans teams tallied a composite 251-121-39 won-lost record (61%), including 5 conference crowns (2002, '03, '04, '06, '07) and 4 consecutive NCAA Division III tournament appearances (2002-05).
This season Thakar cited senior Sophia Kaplan (Mentor, Ohio/Mentor High), senior midfielder Julia Redilla (Cranberry Twp., Pa./Seneca Valley High), and first-year goalkeeper Morgan Murphy (Yardley, Pa./Villa Joseph Marie Academy).
"Sopha Galietta is probably one of the best defenders in our region. She's awesome," Thakar praised. "I wouldn't trade her for any defensive player in our conference. Very solid, and she's kept it together for us with some of our younger girls."
Redilla is a returning All-PAC 1st-Team performer who also earned United Soccer Coaches' All-Region 2nd-Team laurels and All-Eastern College Athletic Conference honors a year ago when she scored 16 goals and accounted for 36 points. She's scored a team-high 5 goals this season.
"Offensively, we're still working on things to put together some kind of consistent play," Thakar explained.
Murphy has made 39 saves thus far, having played virtually 90 minutes in every match with the exception of a 6-0 win over LaRoche University. With her in goal Westminster has whitewashed four foes.
"Morgan Murphy, is an amazing goalkeeper for a freshman and really mature for her age," Thakar praised. … We're really pleased with her play so far."
Thakar admitted, "It's still the early stages (of the season), there's still some wrinkles there. By any means we're not blowing out any teams, especially the better teams. We've played some very good teams out of conference.
"This is still a young team," he reiterated, "and even though there's some quality there, some good players who're returning from last year, at the end of the day they're still young and they have their ups and downs.
"I think next year when the majority of the players will be juniors, that's when we're really going to be good, really good," Thakar forecasted, before returning to the Titans of 2022.
"They'll play well at times, but then have an off-day here and there. But there's always someone there to pick them up.
"We don't have one (standout) player on our team. It's always someone there to pick us up. So it's been game-to-game, and a different player steps up."
Wednesday, Westminster will travel to Grove City for a 4:30 p.m. PAC match.
