Bohl leads nation in goals, points
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Published: 09/30/2010 |
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Leading the nation in any statistical category is tough so it's even more impressive when a freshman is able to do it. Freshman forward Paula Bohl is off to an amazing start to her MSOE career with 17 goals in ten games. Bohl is tied for the lead in goals and leads all NCAA Division III women's soccer players with 38 points. She is nearing the MSOE school record for points in a season which is held by junior teammate Jessica Axt and Desiree Dugan who each had 41 points in a season. With seven goals this season, Axt now has 40 career goals which is another MSOE record.
"She can score like crazy," said senior co-captain Heidi Brehmer, who has 29 career goals, about Bohl. "She's so fast. No defenders can keep up with her."
Bohl has scored four goals in two separate games in 2010 and is just three goals short of Axt's MSOE record for goals in a season.
"We knew in practice that she was going to be a big effect on the field," said senior student manager Mindy Donald. "The balls that the other girls give to her, she always finds the end of them and she can just put them in the back of the net. She gets it done."
Donald, inactive this year but will return for her final season in 2011, holds the Raiders record for assists in a season with 14 set in 2008. However, MSOE is not a team that worries about individual accomplishments.
"We really don't talk about these kinds of things," Donald said. "I even said to her yesterday: ‘hey number one,' and she had no idea. We don't look at the stats. We don't look at anything. The only thing we look at is other teams and how we can improve towards them."
The focus of each MSOE player is helping the team get better every day. "I think we focus on how we will each be individually good for our team," Donald said. "Not individually to stand out and be that one person that sticks out but rather how we can individually improve the team."
MSOE head coach Rolf Zersen has a distinct philosophy when it comes to bringing in the right players for his team.
"The girls I try to recruit, one, have to be academically sound and, two, I look at their personality," Zersen said. "All the girls that I've brought in have had personalities where they want to be on a winning team."
Bohl credits her teammates with giving her the opportunities to put the ball in the back of the net. Fellow freshman Allison Zimont is second in the nation and leads the Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) in assists with nine and junior Jamie Janczak is just behind her with seven which puts her tied for fifth in the nation. Bohl has enjoyed playing with and being around her teammates in her short time at MSOE.
"I love them," Bohl said. "They're the coolest group of girls and I wouldn't trade them for anything."
After attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison last year, Bohl decided she missed playing soccer too much and transferred to MSOE.
"The classes were too big and I wanted to find a smaller school that really cared and where I could play soccer," Bohl said. "From a lot of searching, I found that MSOE had a lot to offer for me with their DIII athletics and with a smaller business program which I could get into and work one-on-one with the professors."
The MSOE Rader School of Business has been a good fit for Bohl so far and a big reason for that is because of her professors.
"You can tell they actually care," Bohl said. "You're not just a number. They know your name and about you. That's what I like about it."
MSOE has won five straight games and is undefeated in NAC action. While winning the NAC is important to the Raiders (7-3, 5-0 NAC), their goals go even higher than that.
"For sure I want to make it into the NCAA Tournament," Brehmer said. "Since freshman year, that's what I've wanted. We're just going to keep working hard and focusing. Take it game by game. Hopefully in the end we'll end up in the NAC Championship game and we'll continue from there."
There were some early signs that MSOE was going to have a big year this fall. "First couple days of practice we knew that we were going to have a good team and the freshmen were going to come in and play up to the level we hoped they would so I'm pretty excited," Brehmer said.
The newcomers to MSOE's team have made a very experienced team even stronger in 2010. "Every year Rolf tells us that he recruits good girls and that we have to step up our game or we are going to get our spots taken," Donald said. "So when he tells us that, we know that there's going to be good freshman coming in. It only makes us better."
Editor's Note: Bohl and Axt each scored a goal in MSOE's 2-1 defeat of Marian last night. The Raiders take to the pitch Sunday, Oct. 3 for a conference road game against Aurora.
