The Western Kentucky women’s soccer team will get the 2024 season started at Austin Peay at 6 p.m. Thursday, still trying to find its way.

A mixture of 17 returning players and nine newcomers – including two transfers – have come together to find some early chemistry that can lead to success on the field. It’s been a quick preseason according to head coach Jason Neidell, who said everything is still a work in progress.

“It’s always funny in the early season because there are still so many things to work on,” Neidell said. “The reality is the NCAA doesn’t give us enough (time) to prepare, but at the same time it’s the same for all teams. We are all in the same boat. I like the energy that this group has. They have been extremely coachable. It’s been a really fun preseason to be a coach because they have been so receptive and so sponge-like in trying to absorb as much information as they can.

“It’s been great. We haven’t gotten as far as we wanted as far as our curriculum. We are going into the first game with a lot of things that we just haven’t had a chance to work on yet, but again it will be the same for Austin Peay. I always tell the team it is a process. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Western Kentucky enters off a season in which the Hilltoppers finished 6-5-7. The seven ties not only set a program record, but was a Conference USA record as well.

“It was a really dubious record that we set last year, right?” Neidell said. “We were really, really close and we’ve talked about it already this season. We talked about early in the season that we were really, really close, but then at the end of the season we were still really, really close. We’ve talked about as a team what that means and what we need to do to kind of get over that hump and take it from good to great.”

Sophomore midfielder Rebecca Roth said finding a way to convert those ties into wins is something the team is focused on heading into 2024.

“It is definitely something in the back of our minds that is driving us forward this year,” Roth said. “We were close, but we weren’t close enough. It’s something this year that we are really focusing on – stepping up and hitting that new level.”

WKU was strong on the defensive end last season, with goalkeeper Maddie Davis and WKU recording eight shutouts. The issues came on the offensive end where WKU was shut out six times, including the opening round of the Conference USA Tournament to host Louisiana Tech.

“I would just say focusing in on being more clinical when it comes to our finishes, working as a team to improve our offense,” Davis said. “Find a way to score goals. We have to figure out how to score goals.”

WKU hasn’t had a player score 10 or more goals in a season since Mallory Outerbridge in 2011. Neidell said while there may not be a 10-goal scorer on this season’s roster, there is some potential. According to Neidell, Kayla Meyer is a solid goal scorer who could have a breakout season. WKU also added a lot of speed to front line that will really help too.

Getting more wins is one hurdle to clear for the Hilltoppers. The other is success in conference play. WKU finished third in conference play last season and is picked to finish third again.

“I briefly had seen them,” Lily Rummo said of the preseason rankings. “I think it probably depends for different people, but we can use everything as motivation right? We really just need to take care of our own business. Whatever they say, if it is good or bad, we really need to focus on what we are doing here and try to block out the other noise of people telling us what we should be doing.”

The biggest hurdle in conference play comes in the postseason. WKU’s last conference tournament win was in 2021 when the season was moved to the spring due to COVID. WKU last played for a conference title in 2013.

WKU will look to buck those trends this season, with Neidell confident the pieces are in place to make it a special season.

“At the end of the day, it is a process,” Neidell said. “We don’t have to be ready to win a championship on Thursday. We have to be ready to win a championship at the end of October.

“ … It’s the hump that we have to get over. We haven’t been good in the first round of the tournament. Part of that is not being close to where we are supposed to be at that point of the season. Part of it is soccer is just such a demanding game. Can we manage loads a little bit better so we are in a better position to be fresher at the end of the season?”