DANVILLE, Va. — The Averett University women's soccer looks to build on last season's 10-win in the USA South Conference under the leadership of third-year head coach Sarah Chapman. The team made great strides, improving its win total by seven games from the previous year.

The Cougars begin the 2017 season on Friday, Sept. 1, at home in a non-conference matchup against Emory & Henry College at 7 p.m.


FIVE KEYS TO THE 2017 SEASON
VETERAN ROSTER
Head Coach Sarah Chapman brings a team of 15 returners and three new faces in Bailey Hoffman, Emily Meador, and Alexis Coleman.

GAME EXPERIENCE
The Cougars return 11 players that appeared in a minimum of 75 percent of the team's matches last season. The group includes seniors Cassidy Feldt and Amanda Gustavsson, juniors Kaitlyn Barbour, Linnea Meyer, Lauren Cowling, Rosa Morales and Bailee Brown and sophomore Kirsten Clancy, who each started at least 18 games.

CHEMISTRY IMPORTANT
One of Coach Chapman's main goals is to make sure that everyone is meshing well, understanding their role and working hard as a unit instead of individually. " In my first year it was really a lot of trying to understand who I was as a coach and trusting me. In my second year everyone was starting to understand a bit more of the culture that I was trying to create. This year everyone is really accepting of one another and is working very hard as a unit and not individually and as a coach there is nothing more that you can ask for. "

'GET THE JOB DONE EARLY'
"Get the job done early" seems to be the motto of the 2017 season. The Cougars want to achieve this by playing their game with their style of play with the main task being scoring a lot of goals early in games.

KEEP IT SIMPLE
Gustavsson said, "The key to success is to play a simple game. That's what coach wants us to do and that's what we are going to try to do."