By: Justin Lafleur, Lehigh Sports Communications
 
It's not how you start, but how you finish.
 
The Lehigh women's soccer team may not have started the 2018 season like it would have liked, but by the end, the Mountain Hawks were right where they wanted and expected to be – amongst the Patriot League's elite putting up one heck of a fight in the postseason, a run that fell just short in the Patriot League Championship Game.
 
It marked Lehigh's second appearance in the title game in head coach Eric Lambinus' nine-year career, the other being his first season in 2010.
 
Results are a byproduct of hard work, and strong foundational pieces within Lehigh women's soccer allowed the Mountain Hawks to continue battling despite not seeing success early in the season.
 
"Things we wanted to work on over the course of a season are things that we hold true to our program – being tough, hard-working, purposeful and cohesive," said Lambinus. "Those were the areas where I thought we needed to improve, most specifically toughness, and by the end of the year, we were unbelievably tough." 

 

How tough were the Mountain Hawks? They trailed 1-0 in a must-win regular-season finale at Holy Cross and in the Patriot League Quarterfinals vs. Bucknell, only to come back and win 2-1, scoring the game-winning goals in the 85th and 110th minutes, respectively. Then in the semifinals, Colgate evened the score at one in the second half and was charging hard looking for the go-ahead goal, only to see the Mountain Hawks win another 2-1 thriller behind senior Sabrina Mertz's90th-minute score.
 
What's most exciting about Lehigh women's soccer's recent success? The Mountain Hawks are primed to continue building into the future.
 
"I believe we're in a really good spot with the culture of our program, the way we go about things, the way we improve and the way we embrace failure," said Lambinus. "They were big steps that we struggled with in years prior while this year, I thought we greatly improved."
 
Tough Early Season Leads to Turnaround
Early in the year, the Mountain Hawks picked up impressive wins over defending NEC Regular Season Champion Fairleigh Dickinson (1-0), at perennial MAAC Champion Monmouth (1-0) and over an always-competitive Temple squad (2-0). However, the Mountain Hawks were struggling to score consistently, which led to a five-game losing streak, all extremely competitive contests that were decided by a combined six goals.

In the last game of the losing streak, Lambinus saw something that ultimately carried forward and served as a turning point.

"When we lost to Navy, we played a really strong game, but gave up two not-so-great goals," said Lambinus. "They were more mistakes on our part, but the last eight to 10 minutes when we were down 2-0 was some of the best soccer we played. We were giving unbelievable effort and were working. I thought that period, which saw us end 0-4 in the league with no goals scored, was our turning point."
 
Work rate was a theme throughout the 2018 season, through good times and bad. There were many times when it would have been easy to quit, but the Mountain Hawks did anything but quit.
 
After the Navy defeat, Lehigh responded by picking up its first-ever win at American. Mertz scored the game's only goal in the 31st minute, while junior goalkeeper Sam Miller was strong in making six saves (all in the second half), including a sensational stop in the final minute to seal the victory.
 
"The American game is an easy one to highlight, to go down there, win that game and get a shutout," said Lambinus.
 
From there, the Mountain Hawks continued to gain steam. Two days later, they put forth an impressive effort against a strong, regionally-ranked Penn team, falling in double overtime. Then, Lehigh dominated archrival Lafayette 4-1, outshooting the Leopards, 23-3.

The Mountain Hawks lost games to Bucknell (1-0) and Loyola (4-3), but kept working and building towards something greater.

 
"I think back to the moments when we lost as just as important moments as when we won," said Lambinus. "We fought in the last 20 minutes of the Loyola game down there and didn't quit."
 
Lehigh's postseason run effectively began on Oct. 30 at Holy Cross when it needed to win (and get some help) to reach its third straight Patriot League Tournament. That's exactly what happened; after Holy Cross scored first, junior Kayla Arestivo pulled Lehigh even late in the first half before junior Sidonie Warnecker scored the game-winning goal in the 85th minute. The same thing happened in the quarterfinals at Bucknell, with the Bison scoring first before sophomore Ally Friedman pulled Lehigh even at halftime, setting the stage for Arestivo's goal with just two seconds remaining in double overtime.  

"The funny things is that in the championship game, I thought we were a little nervous in the beginning and I was actually rooting for Boston to score in the first half," said Lambinus. "I thought if they scored, we would start to play well and things would start to open up. That would have never been a thought with Lehigh women's soccer the previous two years.
 
"When they did score, I thought we were all over them the next 15-20 minutes. That tells me we were tough, we were strong, we were physically fit and we were able to play at that level. The reaction to failure was very strong."
 
How Did It Happen?
What allowed the Mountain Hawks to impress so much down the stretch and in the postseason? Talk to Lambinus or any of the players, and they would say they expected to be in that position. They just took an atypical route.
 
"Coming into the year, we thought we had a lot of pieces in place," said Lambinus. "I knew we lost a lot [from 2017], but it took us about halfway through the year to figure out formations and where players should be playing. I believe we'll have a better handle on that going into next year."
 
An important part of Lehigh's offensive surge (scoring 13 goals in a six-game stretch) was an understanding of formation and what the coaching staff expected out of each position.
 
"Our shape was a lot better," said Lambinus. "Our players started to understand how we wanted each position to be played and how to use their skill sets within the position – instead of being in a position and just doing what they do. A good example is Courtney Supp who as a freshman, was learning how to play. She is a great forward, but initially, didn't fully understand how we wanted that position to be played. She started to play the position the way we needed it to be played, and that's why I believe she did really well at the end of the year.
 
"On the other side, Sid [Warnecker] is another good example," Lambinus continued. "Also, our back line and midfield was structured way better where people had specific roles. It ties back to being cohesive and being self-aware, and we were able to fit the personality and the skill sets within the positions better at the end of the year than the beginning."
 
Because of the team's cohesiveness and family atmosphere, everyone continued to play for each other. After being competitive in every Patriot League game throughout the regular season, the Mountain Hawks avenged regular-season losses to Bucknell and Colgate in postseason rematches.
 
"We were always a hard-working team. It's how we do things around here," said Lambinus. "I don't think I ever questioned their work rate, their desire or their want. We had to work together to figure out what we needed to work on and how to concentrate our efforts."
 
Moving Forward
The Mountain Hawks remain in a strong position heading into 2019. A sign of a strong program is one that reloads rather than rebuilds. Lehigh loses a talented senior class – as it lost last season – but has plenty of pieces returning who are very capable of filling in for departed seniors.
 
One of the biggest voids will be from Mertz, not only her on-field play (earning All-Patriot League recognition), but perhaps most importantly, her leadership. 

 
"We can take the credit for selecting Sabrina and developing her, but our Flight 45 (leadership) program has been fully invested in Sabrina's growth. We saw a perfect example of someone leading a team and being such a good leader and caring about her teammates," said Lambinus. "We saw it within all our seniors; they were team-first in everything they did. They all added so much and I don't think we would have continued to take strides without them fully buying into the development process and what we do here at Lehigh, becoming the epitome of what student-athletes should be their senior years.
 
"I believe the junior class is ready to take some steps into becoming really good leaders," Lambinus continued. "We've also seen some great things out of our freshmen and sophomores. We're not looking to replace the seniors, but bring out the best in what we have. And we have some really good pieces coming back."
 
If the Mountain Hawks keep going about the process correctly, the results will come. It may not always be a straight line correlation – as shown by the 2018 season – but hard work will be rewarded with results, even if not immediately.
 
"We compare ourselves to other teams in the league, not necessarily in wins and losses, but in traits and style of play," said Lambinus. "We want to say we're a tough team who works hard, and we consistently compare ourselves to the top four or five teams in our league in that regard. We're fortunate enough to have some teams who literally have been in the tournament for 10 to 15 straight years, so there is a bar set, and it's because of the level of coaches they have."
 
The Mountain Hawks compare themselves to their opponents, but at the same time, are most focused on being the best version of themselves.
 
"Our goal is to be the best Lehigh women's soccer team each year," said Lambinus. "I believe we have put together a program that will compete at a certain level consistently. Next year's team is going to be different in personality, leadership and all those types of things, but we still want to display the traits that Lehigh soccer has always displayed."
 
The Mountain Hawks are always looking to succeed in everything they do, and that includes in the classroom, where Lehigh women's soccer owned the highest cumulative GPA last school year (over 3.60), an incredibly impressive figure for such a large group of more than 25 student-athletes.
 
"Our goal is to achieve at our very best in all aspects of our lives," said Lambinus. "We don't compartmentalize what we do. We are who we are in every aspect. We want to have the same toughness, hard work, cohesiveness and purpose in everything we do, on and off the field.
 
"We recruit players who want to be the very best, not just soccer players and not just academically, but they want to be the very best in both, which allows us to achieve in the way we have," Lambinus continued. "We have a team that qualified for the postseason three years in a row, which is only the second time in our history that we've done that. It's the third time we've played in the championship game, we have the highest GPA in the department and our retention rate is through the roof.
 
"It doesn't surprise me that the success has correlated to Coach Cal (Lauren Calabrese) coming back to the program. She has done a great job of building and enhancing what was in place. I believe the most important thing moving forward is to keep building and keep doing the things that we've done well so far, and even do them a little bit better."

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