This afternoon, the Bearcats Woman’s Soccer team continued to get good news after senior defender Ashley Barron was named the AAC Defensive Player of the Year for the third consecutive season, they also saw Kendal Battle, Vanessa DiNardo and Lauren Bastain all be named to the AAC Second Team while freshman Maddie Swingle and Megan Smith were tabbed to AAC All-Rookie Team.
DiNardo, a graduate student was named to the AAC Second Team for the consecutive seasons where she led the team with four goals on 46 shots finishing third within the American Athletic Conference as she averaged 2.63 shots per game. DiNardo was a force to be reckon with in the open field and was someone teams had to game plan very well for our she’d make them pay in the open field and we saw that quite a bit this season as she made her presence known at the pitch after coming off a season in 2021 where she finished second in goals within the AAC.
Junior forward Lauren Bastain finished with three assists on the season, tied for the team lead along with two goals including a late goal to secure a 2-2 draw vs Memphis back on September 22nd. Battle anchored the back line alongside Barron as the defense recorded seven shutouts on the season as the defense didn’t allow anything through behind the great play from Battle and Barron as the seniors played a huge part of the Bearcats success as Battle tallied 1,472 minutes in the teams 17 matches en route to being tabbed to the AAC Second Team for her second consecutive season.
Freshman Megan Smith burst onto the scene early as she recorded her first career brace for the Bearcats back on September 1st, as she finished with four goals on the season, tied with DiNardo and Paige Miller for the team lead. Maddie Swingle also recorded two goals and an assist on the season as the freshman stepped in and made 10 starts on the season and played some key minutes and was a huge part of the Bearcats success. Smith and Swingle will play a huge part in this team’s success over the next few seasons as the freshman class that Neil Stafford and staff have brought in has been something very special as they all saw significant time this season as the Bearcats make the transition to the Big 12, it will be something very exciting for Bearcats fans as the women’s soccer team will look to build off their success they had this season as they remained perfect at Gettler Stadium for the first time since 2017.
A huge congratulations to Vanessa, Ashley, Megan, Maddie, Lauren and Kendal on all of their hard work this season en route to the Bearcats 3rd place finish in the AAC.
