Under the bright lights of Notre Dame’s Alumni Field in
South Bend, Ind., Michigan women’s soccer coach Debbie
Rademacher paced the sidelines, standing and shouting instruction
to her players. Time was ticking away in the second half and the
Wolverines held the 3-2 lead. Three … two … one
… suddenly Rademacher’s face was aglow as she let out
a resounding “Yeah!” and heartily embraced her
assistant. It was her 125th career win as Michigan’s head
coach and her first over the Irish.

“We’ve been trying to beat Notre Dame for 10 years
now and those girls knew that it was going to be tough,” said
Rademacher. “We were not intimidated, and we fought
hard.”

To say the moment was an emotional one wouldn’t do it
justice. The unranked Wolverines had scored three times on the No.
2 team in the country, beating them for the first time in the
history of the Michigan program. The win validated a team that knew
all along it had the talent, and only needed to find the final
component — heart.

The season started slowly for the Wolverines, as was expected
after the loss of six seniors, including 2002 Big Ten Athlete of
the Year, Abby Crumpton. Crumpton led a talented team on an
unexpected run to the NCAA quarterfinals last year, after Michigan
started 5-0 and finished 13-5-1. This year’s team began the
season in the exact opposite way, going 0-3-2 before getting its
first win against Iowa State.

“It’s hard to just put it together and think
it’s going to be a repeat of last year,” said Crumpton,
who regularly attended home games this year. “You have to
rebuild after you lose so many seniors. It just takes time and
practice.”

This year’s young team hasn’t had it easy. Besides
returning no starters on the defensive back line, the offense also
had to be revamped while experienced attackers such as sophomore
Therese Heaton — who had to recover from summer surgery
— missed time. And just when things were starting to click
offensively in the middle of the season, forward Kate Morgan
— who led the team in goals at the time — suffered a
broken leg in the game against Penn State on Oct. 5. The offense
began to struggle again in the 2-0 loss to Penn State and the two
ties following. Michigan could only muster one goal during all
three of those matches.

“We have some attackers that came in not 100 percent
because they had surgeries, and things that didn’t allow them
to be 100 percent at preseason, and we had a couple broken legs to
forwards,” Rademacher said. “It’s the little
things that are a big factor in your offense’s
output.”

Over the entire season the Wolverines have had trouble scoring
and finishing goals to win games, despite solid efforts by the
defense. Freshman goalkeeper Megan Tuura has exceeded expectations
in net — recording a .47 goals-against average while
splitting time with senior Suzie Grech — and freshman backs
Lindsay Cottrell and Brenna Mulholland looked like they had been
winning headballs and tackling opponents at Michigan for years.

But without goals, it’s hard to win. The offensive
struggles led to six ties on the year, a record for Michigan. But,
Rademacher says, the team never looked to place blame on
individuals.

“It’s been frustrating tying, but they’re
never pointing fingers, ever,” Rademacher said. “They
just keep plugging away. That’s the thing about this team,
they just pick it up and come out and practice even
harder.”

At this point, Michigan was just 3-5-6 and in need of more
points in order to secure a spot in the Big Ten Tournament. Maybe
it was the letdown of a loss against Purdue — in which the
Boilermakers scored in the last 22 seconds of regulation to bring
the game to a tie. Maybe it was the fact that since 1998 the
program had always held a winning record. But whatever the reason,
Michigan started winning games and building confidence.

With Morgan out, senior Stephanie Chavez and freshman Katie
Kramer stepped into the gap and began to produce for the offense.
The two combined for game-winning goals in the contests against
Iowa and Central Michigan, and Chavez notched the overtime clincher
against Michigan State to extend the Michigan winning streak to
three. The momentum was building, and not even a loss to Kansas
just three days before the matchup with Notre Dame could keep the
Wolverines down.

“There is such great chemistry on this team, I mean, we
all get along so well, that I think that is the basis we have to
build on,” sophomore midfielder Stephanie Boyles said.
“Because of that chemistry we’ve gotten better and
better.”