MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Nikki Izzo-Brown isn’t quite sure what to expect when her 29th season as West Virginia’s women’s soccer coach begins Thursday with the Mountaineers welcoming Delaware for a 7 p.m. match at Dick Dlesk Soccer Stadium.
“It’s really hard when we have to acclimate so quickly,” Izzo-Brown said. “We get 10 days [in preseason camp] and we go.”
But the veteran head coach has a good idea where to start when discussing where she expects her team to be plenty formidable.
“Our midfield is a lot of our fifth-year kids, so we feel really good about the midfield because of experience,” Izzo-Brown said. “Right now, the midfield is probably where we’re going to feel the most confident in such a short timeframe to coach and teach.”
Among the experienced midfielders is AJ Rodriguez, West Virginia’s lone selection on the Preseason All-Big 12 Conference Team. Rodriguez has started 46 matches in her career, including 42 over the last two seasons. She has eight goals and three assists in college and scored five goals in 2022.
“The kid is a soccer talent and she has a high soccer IQ,” Izzo-Brown said. “As we study AJ, she’s a kid that rarely makes the wrong pass, where some kids you have to say right decision, bad execution. With AJ, it’s usually right decision, right execution. She’s a soccer mind and someone we have a lot of faith in her decision-making. She’s enthusiastic and passionate about the game and sees the game at a high level. A very kind individual. She stayed here all summer to be more impactful than she was last year.”
Izzo-Brown figures Rodriguez should benefit from playing alongside other experienced midfielders in returnees Isabel Loza and Lilly McCarthy as well as Bucknell transfer Hannah Stuck.
Loza had one goal and one assist over 12 games, all of which she started in, last season. McCarthy tallied one assist in 17 games while playing nearly 400 minutes.
Stuck joins the Mountaineers following a successful career with the Bison, which culminated with two goals and five assists over a team-high 1,657 minutes last season.
While WVU struggled to generate offense too often at times throughout last year’s 7-8-4 campaign, it also figures to benefit from the return of forward Taylor White, who led the squad with nine goals last season as a sophomore. White’s scoring total made up nearly one-third of the Mountaineers’ 28 goals.
“Taylor had a great summer,” Izzo-Brown said. “She played on a team in Cincinnati [White’s hometown] and then came back early and started working with our people here. She brings confidence being our leading goal scorer, but also maturity. She’s in the leadership group we have and understands who she is on and off the field and the expectation.”
The Mountaineers must replace one of the more productive and longest-tenured goalkeepers in program history with the loss of four-year starter Kayza Massey. Massey made 72 starts over 76 appearances in five seasons, including 71 starts between 2020-2023.
She finished her career with a 36-21-17 record and .758 save percentage, while recording 28 clean sheets, including 26 over her final three seasons.
Redshirt sophomore Mackenzie Smith is the team’s lone returning goalkeeper and appeared in two matches last season, while redshirt freshman Campbell Wolff and redshirt sophomore Bailey Herfurth, a pair of transfers from the Southeastern Conference, are challenging for playing time.
Wolff came to WVU from Ole Miss, while Herfurth joined the Mountaineers following two seasons at LSU.
“Every day is a tryout. We feel that we’re in a pretty good place with all three, but we’ve been able to see some things in training,” Izzo-Brown said. “We’re hopeful all three could step up and take on that role. We’ll see the next two training sessions who will be in the net Thursday night.”
Izzo-Brown desires a better start this season from West Virginia, which was 2-5-2 through the opening month in 2023 before going 5-3-2 over its final 10 matches.
Seven of the Mountaineers’ first 10 matches this season are in Morgantown.
“Kicking off at Duke was a tough first game,” Izzo-Brown said of her team’s season-opening loss a year ago. “Maybe we’re not putting together a Duke in the first game to ease ourselves into things. Anytime you’re transitioning losing professional soccer players, you have to be mindful of how quickly can we replace those players and rebuild. This year, we’re trying to be a little bit more mindful of how quickly can you rebuild when you lose such impactful players, but also have a balance of a schedule that gets you to the NCAA Tournament when you don’t know what your conference games are going to look like. It’s calculus, baby.”
West Virginia qualified for the NCAA Tournament 21 straight seasons under Izzo-Brown, but has failed to do in two of the last three seasons.