Comeback Kids

For most teams, a painful season like EWU’s 2023 soccer campaign would take years to bounce back from.

Matches were usually tight, play was always competitive, but poor results spoke for themselves: Just two wins, 14 losses and one draw. After a particularly frustrating, season-ending losing streak that concluded with a dismal 4-0 beatdown at Northern Colorado, there seemed to be only darkness at the end of the tunnel.

But the Eagle women were undaunted. And well before the 2024 season commenced in August, they were laying the groundwork — both mentally and physically — for the powerful comeback that propelled this years’ squad to conference-title contenders. “I saw it last year,” said junior defender Becca Gaido. “I knew the players on our team were capable of this, and I knew what we could do. We were just not getting the results we thought we deserved.”

“Our record didn’t match our ability” added Chloe Pattison, the team’s superstar striker. “A lot of the Big Sky felt we were a good team; we just couldn’t find our results.”

That all changed this fall. Picked in preseason polling to finish eighth, Eastern instead finished 4-1-3 in conference play, earning third place and their first conference tournament appearance since 2019. It was one of the most dramatic win-loss turnarounds in the nation.

Pattison, a junior from Lake Stevens, Washington, was a catalyst for the Eagle offense all season long, leading the conference in goals, shots on goal, and points. In November, she was named the Big Sky’s co-offensive Player of the Year and, along with the Eagle’s attacking midfielder  Kendall Moore, earned a place on the Big Sky’s All-Conference First Team.

Pattison and her teammates credit the confidence and work ethic of fourth-year head coach Missy Strasburg for fueling the turnaround. That assessment was shared by Strasburg’s coaching colleagues, who awarded her the Big Sky’s Coach of the Year honors, the third Eastern coach to be so named.

All told, Eastern earned four Player of the Week awards in 2024, and matched 2017 with a total of six players named to All-Conference teams. Eastern’s junior goalkeeper, Kamryn Willoughby, was one of these six standouts, leading a defense that kept five clean sheets.

Unfortunately, after earning a three seed in the conference tournament, the Eagles’ title hopes ended — after 20 minutes of overtime and a penalty shoot-out — against Portland State, 1-1 (7-6). “Having such an incredible season end in PKs is absolutely gut-wrenching,” said Strasburg after the match. “But our women put everything they had into that tournament quarterfinal, and we are deeply proud of their effort and commitment to each other.”