HUMBOLDT WOMEN ANNOUNCE SCHEDULE
Cal Poly Humboldt announced its schedule for the spring season of exhibitions this week. Fresh off a successful season that saw them make the conference tournament for the first time in 16 years, the ‘Jacks will begin the process of trying to build on that success with a series of friendlies, including one game against a Division I opponent.
There is plenty of optimism around the Lumberjacks considering they are only losing five players from last year’s team,
meaning there are 23 returning players on the roster for the spring season. The Lumberjacks also previously announced the addition of five incoming freshmen for the fall.
“The priority is to continue to develop as a group,” said head coach Grant Landy. “In this part of the season, we see a lot of growth from our younger players.”
Many of Humboldt’s key contributors from last season, including all five of their top goal scorers, were freshmen or sophomores. With such a strong season and such a young team, the potential for the ‘Jacks is skyhigh.
But the spring season also presents an opportunity with lower stakes to have fun playing the games and getting different players opportunities on the field.
“It’s also an opportunity where we’re not worried about winning and losing as much,” added Landy. “Try different things, different systems, different people in different positions. So there’s a lot of tinkering that goes on, which I think makes it kind of fun.”
The spring season will kick off on March 26 with a doubleheader of games in San Rafael. The Lumberjacks will first
play Dominican and then will play Sierra College. Many of the games will be road events that Humboldt will travel to, but they will play their lone true home game the following week against Santa Rosa Junior College.
They will then play doubleheaders in Redding against Simpson University and Shasta College, followed by two games in Ashland, Oregon against Southern Oregon and Oregon Tech. For each of the doubleheaders, the games will be shortened to be two 60-minute matches instead of the full 90 minutes.
Those games all lead up to the highlight of Humboldt’s spring schedule; a matchup with Division I program University of the
Pacific in Stockton.
“We’re trying to build our program to a place where Division I (programs) see our program as a good opponent for springtime games,” said Landy. “We’ll start this year with University of the Pacific and really excited about them giving us the opportunity to play them. And next year maybe we try to grab another Division I.”
“It’s important for us to play against good competition because our conference is very good,” added Landy.
They will close out the spring season with a more lighthearted event to have fun, the alumni game in Arcata on April 29. Humboldt alumni interested in participating can sign up through the Cal Poly Humboldt athletics website.