Thursday, August 22nd, 2019 -- For just the third time in the 22-year history of the Northern Arizona University Women's Soccer Team, the Lumberjacks will begin the year with a new head coach.
Enter Kylie Louw, who took over in March. Louw has served as an assistant coach at NAU and University of Arizona. She represented South Africa at the 2012 Olympic games.
She takes over a program that has just had one losing season and three Big Sky Championship match appearances since 2012. '
The Arizona Soccer Association (ASA) had a chance to talk to Louw about the upcoming season.
ASA: On expectations for the upcoming season...
LOUW: "I think if we go with the mindset that each week our goal is to win this game. We will prepare as much as we need to for that game and we grow each game that we play. If we win a lot of games by having a mentality of winning each game then it should fall all together at the end. Everyone knows that the goal is to win the conference. That doesn't even need to be talked about. I prefer talking about the steps needed to take in order to get there. Which is obviously winning each game you play. That's our goal for the season and we have to do the best we can every week."
ASA: On the program you're building...
LOUW: "We are building on top of what already existed and we're just growing and evolving out of that. I think for us it's being professional and making sure that we are extraordinary in everything we do. It's very easy to get caught up in a mindset that it's hard and you have class, but we have to hold ourselves to a different standard and just go 'today we have to get better'. Every action we take and every reaction we take matters towards the culture of the team and it matters towards the team brand. Ultimately, it matters towards our performance and wins at the end of the day. That is how we are going to grow and evolve. Just making sure that each individual contributes to the team whether they are playing or not. Each individual represents the team brand and each individual follows the set of rules we have in place to make sure the team is growing every single day. We will grow tactically and technically in those areas as well. Very proud of this group and I'm excited to see where we are going to go with these next two games as it will be a good test for us on the road.