In just her second year calling the shots, Dartmouth women's soccer head coach Erica Walsh was tabbed Northeast Region Coach of the Year by SoccerBuzz Magazine.
In a poll of Division I coaches and SoccerBuzz staff, Walsh edged out Siena's Steve Karbowski for top coach honors.
SoccerBuzz also named forward Mary McVeigh '03, who finished the 2001 season with five goals and eight assists, to its All-Northeast first team, while forward Annie Gibson '03 and midfielder Jamie Lang '02 were third-team selections.
"Considering our start to the season, I think a lot of this award came from the way we brought things together," Walsh said from her Alumni Gym office. "We graduated all but four starters last year, but I thought we came together very well as the season moved along."
Indeed, the apex of the Big Green season came when the stakes were the highest.
Even though it was one of only a few teams forced to fly to its opening-round site in the 64-team NCAA Tournament, Dartmouth pulled out a 1-0 double-overtime triumph over UW-Milwaukee in Round One before upending a heavily favored Michigan squad by the same score two days later. The Big Green was the only Ivy League team to advance to the Sweet 16.
"I think the UWM and Michigan games were our best showings of the season," said Walsh, whose team lost to the eventual National Champions, Santa Clara, 2-0 in the Round of 16. "The team really showed up to play and played its best soccer when it counted the most."
At one point during the fall, Dartmouth was an uncharacteristically mediocre 3-3-1, a record that included a 1-0 loss to rival Princeton, a 3-2 eke-out win over a weak New Hampshire team and a particularly disappointing scoreless tie with Yale.
But Walsh's team turned things around, beginning with a 2-0 triumph at Syracuse that ignited four-game winning streak.
After a hiccup in the form of a 1-0 double-overtime loss to Connecticut, the Big Green cruised through the remainder of its regular-season schedule and earned a three-way tie for the Ivy crown when Princeton suffered a surprising loss to Yale on the last day of the season.
"I think the Syracuse game was the turning point for us," Walsh said. "We knew we had the talent, it was just a matter of learning how to work together and play winning soccer."
When she was named head coach to replace the highly successful Kelly Blasius Knudsen prior to the 2000 season, Walsh, a 1997 graduate of William & Mary, became the youngest coach in all of Division I.
What she lacked in age, however, she made up for in wins. Her talent-laden 2000 squad soared to a school-record 14 wins, an Ivy League championship and an appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
With two years complete, Walsh has a 25-10-1 head coaching record and a win percentage of 70.8.
"I think a lot of my success stems from working with Kelly for two years," said Walsh, who was a first team All-Colonial Athletic Association defender as a junior and senior at William & Mary. "I gained valuable experience and I learned a lot about the athletes this school is able to attract.
"So when I took over the program, it wasn't a huge change. We had a smooth transition."
Walsh, of course, cannot rest on her SoccerBuzz Northeast Coach of the Year laurels for too long.
Along with her assistants, Ben Landis and Michelle Horbaly, she is recruiting throughout the country and preparing for next season, one that sets up well because the Big Green is losing only three players to graduation while bringing in as many as a half-dozen freshmen to fill the gaps.
Most of all, the 2002 team will boast a senior class that will rank among the best in the Ivy League, which was a key characteristic of the explosive 2000 squad.
"One thing I have figured out over the years is that it's virtually impossible to predict the following year," Walsh said. "On paper, you can be good, but what you really need to have is personality, leadership and chemistry. Those are the three qualities that make a good team great.
"Do I think we will be a strong team? Yes. We'll have a great season class, good personalities and good freshman coming in. But it's very hard to predict what will happen."
