Northern Michigan University’s Madalyn Nissen, left, gets off this pass to a teammate while defended by Carroll University’s Allison McKinney during their women’s soccer exhibition game played at the NMU soccer field in Marquette on Sunday. (Photo courtesy of Cara Kamps)

MARQUETTE — A change in coaches and the departure of several of their best players didn’t put conference coaches in the mood to pick the Northern Michigan University women’s soccer team to repeat as champions for the third straight year.

Instead, the Wildcats earned just the fourth-place spot, barely above the middle in a nine-team Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

In fact, all of the teams ahead of them and even one behind them picked up first-place votes, but NMU didn’t.

The polling was conducted among GLIAC coaches, and usually teams are chosen quite closely to where they finished the year before.

The Wildcats were the only team picked more than two spots away from where they finished at the end of the last regular season in November, from first place down to fourth.

That might be due to the departure of wildly successful head coach Jon Sandoval, who guided Northern to not only back-to-back regular season and conference tournament titles, but appearances in the last two NCAA Division II national tourneys.

He’s left for the head coach’s job at Division I Loyola University of Chicago, so he garnered lots of respect among top-tier college programs.

Taking over is Erin Egolf, who has her own experience at Division I as an assistant coach at Illinois State last year. She had played for the Redbirds about 15 years earlier, earning honors there, and as a coach, led the D-II University of Springfield team for nine seasons, becoming that Great Lakes Valley Conference school’s all-time winningest coach while guiding it to conference tourney berths in 2017, 2022 and 2023.

Maybe that didn’t make as much of a difference to the coaches as the departure of GLIAC Offensive Player of the Year Brooke Pietila, GLIAC Freshman of the Year Sally Patton and three more members of the GLIAC First Team — Justina L’Esperance, Molly Pistorius and Maria Storm. And there was also the departure of GLIAC honorable mention Angelina Perritano.

Conference runner-up Grand Valley State got the nod as champion among the GLIAC coaches in the preseason, collecting six of a possible eight first-place votes, since coaches vote for every team but their own.

The Lakers were a decisive No. 1 over the pair of teams that finished tied for third last season, No. 2 pick Saginaw Valley State and No. 3 pick Ferris State. Each of those schools got a single first-place vote with SVSU three total votes ahead of Ferris.

NMU then slotted in two votes behind the Bulldogs without a first-place vote, then came Davenport five votes after Northern but with a first-place vote. The Panthers were also fifth in the league last year.

Michigan Tech got some respect, tying Purdue Northwest for sixth among coaches well behind Davenport, a vote of confidence for the Huskies considering they were eighth last year and Purdue NW was sixth. Wisconsin-Parksaide, seventh last year, was picked eighth, with Roosevelt an almost unanimous last place, where these Lakers were a season ago.

For the Wildcats, Egolf takes over as the eighth coach in the team’s history, bringing in Nathan Phillips as assistant coach after he was an assistant for three seasons at Millikin University. In those three years, the Big Blue went from 5-7-3 his first campaign to 7-6-4 to 14-4-1 last year.

“The level of accountability is high, the standards that the (student-athletes) have for themselves is really high, and I don’t have to do a lot in terms of motivation,” Egolf said in an NMU Sports Information news release about the poll. “They bring a lot of effort every day…. We have to control what we can, and that’s something I’m big on.

“No matter how good of a soccer team you are, we can always control our effort and our attitude within the organization.”

NMU’s key returnee has to be Hannah Kastamo, the only one among the team’s eight GLIAC award winners in 2024 that’s back after she earned conference Defensive Player of the Year.

Kastamo is a senior, also earning an All-America First Team distinction, Scholar All-America Second Team honor, an all-region First Team pick, GLIAC Fall Commissioner’s Award award and All-GLIAC Tournament Team selection.

Junior forward-midfielder Madison Bilbia returns for her third season after doubling her production from her first to second seasons, finishing fifth on the team both with four goals and 12 points in 2024.

“(Coach Egolf’s) impact has been bringing a sense of calmness,” said Bilbia, who acknowledged nerves around the hiring of a new coach. “On the first day she came in, she had everything together and we stepped into practice like it was completely normal.

“A big part of it is not looking at the season as a whole, but taking it day by day. We start with the first day of preseason, we take that day as hard as we can, and then each day is a new day that we’re focusing on.”

There’s also senior defender Kenna Alexander, who logged the fourth-most minutes playing time, played in all 22 games and scored two goals with an assist last year.

Redshirt junior goalkeeper Jillian Thompson also returns after her first year as starter, setting a program record and leading the nation with 14 shutouts to go with a record-setting 0.36 goals against average.

“I’m super excited to embrace the change,” adds senior defender Addison Wargo, who returns for her fourth campaign after posting career highs in games played, games started and minutes played last season. “We had a stellar season last year, and (we’re) excited to see what we can do. We have our standards and we keep to them.”

The team includes four seniors and five total upperclassmen while still bringing in 14 freshmen.

On Tuesday, the team completed a three-game exhibition schedule over five days, which included a home game on Community Day on Friday at the NMU Soccer Field against Wisconsin-Stevens Point and another on Sunday at home against Carroll University.

The Wildcats now prepare for the start of the regular season with five home games in a row — all nonconference — right from the outset, beginning with St. Cloud State (Minnesota) at 1 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 5.

“I would encourage anyone to come out and see us,” Egolf said, not even mentioning that viewing the team is free. “It’s going to be high-level soccer, and our team is going to walk away from every game proud of the effort we put out.

“We’ve got a lot of home games this fall, and we would appreciate anyone who came out and showed their support.”

Not counting the exhibitions, Northern has 11 home games, with the final one on Nov. 2 against Wisconsin-Parkside.

Story contents based on Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release reviewing the poll and the team’s season. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.