What a season for the soccer women from CCRI, Brown and Providence College! Postseason tournaments for each of them, but the best story might be at the state’s community college.
Two years ago, the Community College of Rhode Island didn’t even field a women’s soccer team.
COVID knocked the Knights — and just about everybody in college sports — off the pitch in 2020. Lingering issues in the administration meant no team in 2021. A program with a strong tradition — 22-0 national champion in 2002, runner-up in 2003, national tournament participant in 2009, 14 consecutive regional titles — was on the brink of disappearing.
But yesterday in Gastonia, N.C., seventh-seeded CCRI played second-seeded and 2022 national champion Dallas College Brookhaven in the quarterfinals of the National Junior College Athletic Association Division III tournament.
That’s right. From no team in 2021 to a tournament team in 2023. Amazing!
Unfortunately, this story does not have a fairytale ending. Dallas dominated, 10-1. Disappointing, certainly, but not enough to diminish what 17 young women from Rhode Island accomplished. They finished with a 10-4 record, were 10-0 in Region XXI (New England), outscored their regional opponents 53-3 and in the regional tournament at their Lincoln campus rolled over Bunker Hill CC, 8-1, and Holyoke CC, 6-0.
Did they exceed expectations?
“Absolutely,” head coach Jeff Patten exclaimed when we spoke yesterday. “In our first game we struggled. We had a lot of new faces. We were disorganized. It was chaos. But they figured it out and pulled out a win. From there they figured, ‘This is going to be fun.’”
That three-letter word — fun — is Patten’s mantra. Too many high-school athletes do not have fun playing their sport, he said. They feel they have to play because they have always played, or it’s expected of them. Patten promotes fun.
“That’s my coaching philosophy,” he said. “It can be serious and fun at the same time.”
Patten brought 20 years of coaching youth soccer and five years at Dean College in Franklin, Mass., when he started at CCRI in 2022.
“It was the end of July, and I had zero players. They didn’t expect a team. Everybody said it was not going to happen. I said I would do the best I can to shatter that expectation. I knew six girls on campus. It was a matter of reaching out and letting the athletes know there is a team,” he said from Gastonia.
He scoured CCRI campuses in Warwick and Lincoln for players. “At some points I was just begging people to play. ‘It’s going to be fun,’ I said.”
He started the 2022 season with 12 players, and the season opener was the only game he had all 12. A few times he had only eight players and against similarly short-handed opponents played 8 on 8.
“In 20 years I never started a game with fewer than 11 players,” he said.
That all-freshman team finished 4-4-1 and hosted a regional playoff game.
This year was a different story.
“Our first practice we had everybody there. The girls had a passion to have fun and to learn,” he said.
Three sophomores — defenders Catherine Beasley, forward Kelsey Hatch and goalkeeper Bailey Patton — returned. Patton anchored a defense that posted seven shutouts, ninth in the nation. Freshmen settled in. Sarah Sorlien had 13 goals and 29 points. Tessa Cost finished with 27 points and Margeory Giron-Reyes 24.
Patten’s message for the quarterfinal was simple: “Play together and have fun. If you’re having fun, that means we are playing loose and together. If we are playing together, that means we are unstoppable.”
Yesterday, CCRI was not unstoppable. Next year, perhaps.
Four years ago, Brown won the first of four consecutive Ivy League regular-season championships. The Bears also began a streak of four NCAA tournament appearances.
Last Friday, Brown’s bid to win the inaugural Ivy League Tournament fell short in a 2-1 overtime loss to Columbia. But Monday afternoon Brown received an at-large bid to the NCAA Division I tournament. The third-seeded Bears will host Quinnipiac Saturday at 4 p.m. at Stevenson-Pincince Field.
“Last year, we lost on a penalty kick to UC Irvine in the second round,” coach Kia McNeill told me Monday. “This year, I feel like we can continue to the Sweet 16, if not farther, starting this weekend.”
The Columbia loss was “tough because we haven’t experienced losing in conference play,” shel said. She wasn’t worried about receiving a bid because “it’s about the body of our work.”
Brown is 11-2-2. The losses were to Providence College on Aug. 31 and to Columbia. The ties were against St. Louis and Portland.
McNeill is in her eighth season and has built a championship program. “I love building a team, starting from the bottom up, having that underdog mentality. When I saw the Brown job open, I saw a sleeping giant.”
Retired coach Phil Pincince developed a proud tradition in women’s soccer during his 39-year career. His teams won 12 Ivy League championships and played in six NCAA Tournaments. He stepped aside after the 2015 season. McNeill has kicked the program up a few notches.
“We changed the training environment, the weight room, nutrition, sports psychology, video-editing software. We upped the ante,” she said. “Our first team bought into the change and allowed us to move the needle pretty quickly. Our first season we were one tie from the championship.”
Eleven seniors “have been critical to our success over the years, specifically this year. They are the last of the COVID group,” McNeill said. They lost their freshman season, 2020, to the pandemic shutdown. As a result, they learned that “every time you step on the field, you don’t take it for granted.”
Brittany Raphino, the star of this team, is a senior exception. She was the Ivy League rookie of the year in 2019. She took a semester off so she would have three seasons of eligibility remaining and has made the most of them: three Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year awards.
“I definitely feel Brittany changed the game in the Ivy League and at Brown,” McNell said. She recruited Raphino at her Randolph, Mass., home and Thayer Academy in Braintree.
“She played for a local club and was always a standout. She was a woman among girls. We got her to clinics, and I talked to her about her future, that this school could launch her academically and athletically. We were fortunate to get her. ACC and SEC school were recruiting her. He dad told me that I talked to her as a person, not just about soccer, and that made the difference to her and to him.”
In return, Raphino, an All-America, has made the difference for Brown.
Providence College is heading to the NCAA Tournament for the third time in program history.
The Friars will play at sixth-seeded Mississippi State Saturday at 2 p.m. PC is 10-4-5 overall and finished 4-1-5 in the Big East. PC lost to Xavier in the Big East semifinals after beating St. John’s in the quarterfinals.
Mississippi State is 10-5-5 and was an SEC semifinalist.
Providence’s last NCAA appearance was in 2021, a 3-0 loss to Hofstra in the first round.
Mike Szostak can be reached at mszostak@thepublicsradio.org.
