Gael Spotlight | Romagnolo Excels During First Year in Moraga
4/30/2021 6:23:00 PM | Women's Soccer
The Common Interest Management Gael Spotlight is a monthly feature story about Saint Mary's Athletics and a behind-the-scenes look at the Gaels.
MORAGA, Calif. — The women's soccer team at Saint Mary's recently wrapped up their 2020-21 season with promising results under first-year head coach Theresa Romagnolo. After going 1-7-0 in West Coast Conference play last season, the Gaels were 4-3-2 this spring against WCC rivals and the future of the program looks to be incredibly bright under the guidance of their new leader.
Romagnolo was hired in January 2020 to lead the women's soccer program and shortly after added her two assistant coaches, Sarah Stanczyk and Samantha Witteman. The former Washington Husky most recently served as head coach at Notre Dame from 2014-18 where she took the Fighting Irish to the NCAA Tournament in all four seasons and claimed an ACC regular season title in 2016. Prior to that, she was in charge of the program at Dartmouth for three seasons.
"What brought me to Saint Mary's was the untapped potential I thought the program had," explained Romagnolo. "When I looked at the school, the academic prestige, the location, and the conference, I thought it had everything to offer a student-athlete in terms of attracting top talent. I was excited to build a program here and bring the experience I had to help develop our current players and begin recruiting to this incredible place that I like to call the 'Jewel of the Bay Area.'"
Prior to her arrival, Saint Mary's women's soccer did not have a particularly decorated history. The team had not posted a winning season since 2011 and had not finished with a winning record in the ever-competitive West Coast Conference in the last 16 seasons.
"From the second I got here, it was clear this team was eager and hungry to have success. After that point, it was about learning what it was going to take to get there."
That is not to say the program has never seen great success. In the early 2000's, head coach Paul Ratcliffe built Saint Mary's into a top-10 program in the nation before eventually taking the head job at Stanford. Hired before the 1998 campaign, Ratcliffe inherited a team that was 4-15-0 the year prior and just two seasons later, the Gaels posted a 13-4-1 record.
Romagnolo is hopeful she can have the same impact over two decades later in Moraga.
"You can't always control the result of the match but you can control giving 100 percent to the process of trying to be your best everyday. That's what we're focused on and if we do that, we hope that the results will turn in our favor."
The team's turnaround took some time to develop before picking up serious momentum in the final weeks of the season. Despite playing in several close contests, including three double-overtime games, SMC was winless through their first five matches.
"If you look at the schedule, we were in every game. We competed with teams from top of the conference all the way down to the bottom."
Romagnolo and the Gaels eventually snapped the streak with a 2-1 win against San Diego to get the ball rolling. Saint Mary's would go 4-1-1 in the final six matches of the season to finish 4-3-2 in league play and claim fifth place in the conference standings.
"Our team felt like every game we were getting better. We truly felt that every week we were becoming a better team. We got to a point where as a group, we believed we were going to find a way to win."
Incredibly, of the 10 players who started all 11 matches for Saint Mary's this season, only three started a single game last year. Eight of the starting 11 didn't even appear in half of the team's matches in 2019.
"It's truly so difficult to pick out one or two players that had the biggest improvement because when I look at our group, there are so many players who made a jump that led to our team's success."
SMC placed two athletes on the All-West Coast Conference Second Team this year: Taylor Poland, a freshman goalkeeper who also earned Goalkeeper of the Year honors, and Maya Alcantara, who took the pitch just eight times last year. It was the first time SMC landed two players on either the First or Second Team in a decade.
The team also had two all-conference honorable mentions: Emily Jensen, the team's leading scorer who appeared in seven matches as a freshman in 2019, and AnnaMaria DiGeronimo, who had never previously played forward at SMC before this season but led the team in shots.
If you wanted to pinpoint one major change from the previous season, the team's defensive prowess quickly jumps out. After giving up 37 goals in 2019, Saint Mary's surrendered just nine goals this spring. SMC nearly matched their total number of shutouts from last year despite playing in eight fewer matches.
Additionally, Gael fans need not fret about any major roster turnover for the fall as Romagnolo will be bringing back all but one member of this team's roster. She's hopeful her squad will be able carry their newly acquired experience into next season and continue their positive momentum.
"The great thing about when we come back in August is we bring back a lot of experience. We have a group that's played a lot of minutes who has changed the culture of the program. They're saying, 'These are the new standards. This is what practice looks like, this is what our off-field behavior looks like.'"
Saint Mary's will lose just one starter from this year to graduation, Lydia Buggs, and will boast a large senior class of 11 members in the fall. The excitement about next season can already be felt in the locker room and the coaches office.
"What I'm looking forward to most in my second season is building off what we've created so far. We've left the spring with a really special feeling about what we're building and everyone can feel it. I'm excited about coming back into a normal fall where we can play a complete season with non-conference games and prepare for the challenging WCC season."
The 2021 fall season begins in roughly four months with hopes of playing a full, regular schedule. In the meantime, there's plenty of optimism throughout the program and the prospect that a new era has just begun in Moraga.
#GaelsRise
MORAGA, Calif. — The women's soccer team at Saint Mary's recently wrapped up their 2020-21 season with promising results under first-year head coach Theresa Romagnolo. After going 1-7-0 in West Coast Conference play last season, the Gaels were 4-3-2 this spring against WCC rivals and the future of the program looks to be incredibly bright under the guidance of their new leader.
Romagnolo was hired in January 2020 to lead the women's soccer program and shortly after added her two assistant coaches, Sarah Stanczyk and Samantha Witteman. The former Washington Husky most recently served as head coach at Notre Dame from 2014-18 where she took the Fighting Irish to the NCAA Tournament in all four seasons and claimed an ACC regular season title in 2016. Prior to that, she was in charge of the program at Dartmouth for three seasons.
"What brought me to Saint Mary's was the untapped potential I thought the program had," explained Romagnolo. "When I looked at the school, the academic prestige, the location, and the conference, I thought it had everything to offer a student-athlete in terms of attracting top talent. I was excited to build a program here and bring the experience I had to help develop our current players and begin recruiting to this incredible place that I like to call the 'Jewel of the Bay Area.'"
Prior to her arrival, Saint Mary's women's soccer did not have a particularly decorated history. The team had not posted a winning season since 2011 and had not finished with a winning record in the ever-competitive West Coast Conference in the last 16 seasons.
"From the second I got here, it was clear this team was eager and hungry to have success. After that point, it was about learning what it was going to take to get there."
That is not to say the program has never seen great success. In the early 2000's, head coach Paul Ratcliffe built Saint Mary's into a top-10 program in the nation before eventually taking the head job at Stanford. Hired before the 1998 campaign, Ratcliffe inherited a team that was 4-15-0 the year prior and just two seasons later, the Gaels posted a 13-4-1 record.
Romagnolo is hopeful she can have the same impact over two decades later in Moraga.
"You can't always control the result of the match but you can control giving 100 percent to the process of trying to be your best everyday. That's what we're focused on and if we do that, we hope that the results will turn in our favor."
The team's turnaround took some time to develop before picking up serious momentum in the final weeks of the season. Despite playing in several close contests, including three double-overtime games, SMC was winless through their first five matches.
"If you look at the schedule, we were in every game. We competed with teams from top of the conference all the way down to the bottom."
Romagnolo and the Gaels eventually snapped the streak with a 2-1 win against San Diego to get the ball rolling. Saint Mary's would go 4-1-1 in the final six matches of the season to finish 4-3-2 in league play and claim fifth place in the conference standings.
"Our team felt like every game we were getting better. We truly felt that every week we were becoming a better team. We got to a point where as a group, we believed we were going to find a way to win."
Incredibly, of the 10 players who started all 11 matches for Saint Mary's this season, only three started a single game last year. Eight of the starting 11 didn't even appear in half of the team's matches in 2019.
"It's truly so difficult to pick out one or two players that had the biggest improvement because when I look at our group, there are so many players who made a jump that led to our team's success."
SMC placed two athletes on the All-West Coast Conference Second Team this year: Taylor Poland, a freshman goalkeeper who also earned Goalkeeper of the Year honors, and Maya Alcantara, who took the pitch just eight times last year. It was the first time SMC landed two players on either the First or Second Team in a decade.
The team also had two all-conference honorable mentions: Emily Jensen, the team's leading scorer who appeared in seven matches as a freshman in 2019, and AnnaMaria DiGeronimo, who had never previously played forward at SMC before this season but led the team in shots.
If you wanted to pinpoint one major change from the previous season, the team's defensive prowess quickly jumps out. After giving up 37 goals in 2019, Saint Mary's surrendered just nine goals this spring. SMC nearly matched their total number of shutouts from last year despite playing in eight fewer matches.
Additionally, Gael fans need not fret about any major roster turnover for the fall as Romagnolo will be bringing back all but one member of this team's roster. She's hopeful her squad will be able carry their newly acquired experience into next season and continue their positive momentum.
"The great thing about when we come back in August is we bring back a lot of experience. We have a group that's played a lot of minutes who has changed the culture of the program. They're saying, 'These are the new standards. This is what practice looks like, this is what our off-field behavior looks like.'"
Saint Mary's will lose just one starter from this year to graduation, Lydia Buggs, and will boast a large senior class of 11 members in the fall. The excitement about next season can already be felt in the locker room and the coaches office.
"What I'm looking forward to most in my second season is building off what we've created so far. We've left the spring with a really special feeling about what we're building and everyone can feel it. I'm excited about coming back into a normal fall where we can play a complete season with non-conference games and prepare for the challenging WCC season."
The 2021 fall season begins in roughly four months with hopes of playing a full, regular schedule. In the meantime, there's plenty of optimism throughout the program and the prospect that a new era has just begun in Moraga.
#GaelsRise
Players Mentioned
D/M
/ Women's SoccerM/F
/ Women's SoccerM/F
/ Women's SoccerM
/ Women's SoccerGK
/ Women's SoccerWSOC | Sydney Middaugh Goal vs. Washington State
Wednesday, October 08
WSOC | Ashlyn Vaughn Goal vs. LMU, Featured on SportsCenter's Top-10
Tuesday, October 07
WSOC | Game Winner vs. Gonzaga in WCC Opener
Thursday, September 25
WSOC | Postgame Interview vs. Hawaii 2025
Monday, September 08
