In her final year, Lobo women’s soccer forward Jen Williams has high but very reachable expectations.
Williams hopes to lead her team to a second Mountain West Conference championship and an NCAA tournament bid for the second straight year.
“Our goals for this season are to make it to the NCAA tournament again and to go as far as we can,” she said. “Also, get MWC regular-season and tournament champions as well.”
The California native earned the MWC Offensive Player of the Year honor in 2010 by helping her team win its first-ever regular-season MWC title.
She finished the year top in the conference with four goals and four assists in conference play; she finished the season with 10 goals and seven assists in 21 games.
Williams has been MWC Offensive Player of the Week four times in her career and hopes to add more to that tally this year.
Last year’s run to the NCAA tournament provided experience and confidence that the senior will bring to the team this season.
“That definitely helped our confidence,” Williams said. “It’s good to know that we can play at a top level and compete with top teams.”
Head coach Kit Vela said that there are a lot of different personalities on the team, and they need to keep connecting and finding themselves.
It is Williams’ final year, and she said that she wants to give it her all and leave everything she can on the field.
“I just want to work hard every day,” she said. “I want to give 100 percent out on the field because you never know when it’s going to end.”
After school she hopes to continue playing Soccer in Europe. If that doesn’t happen, she said she will continue with her education.
She said this will be a year of mixed emotions.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
“I have just about every emotion going through my body,” she said. “I’m excited, I’m sad, I’m nervous, but in the end I’m always happy because I get to play the game I love and be around the girls all the time.”
Williams is already off to a fast start, recording her first goal of the season in the early minutes of the Lobos’ first regular-season game of the year against St. Mary’s on Friday evening. The match ended in a 1-1 tie.
In Sunday’s game vs. Cal State-Bakersfield, she scored the first goal of the game once again in the early minutes, which helped her team to a 4-0 victory.
