By Michael Del Genio
Dominican women’s soccer enters the 2025 season with an early 1-2 record, with a loss to Wheaton College, North Central College, and a win over North Park University. The team is led by a small senior class headlined by captain and midfielder Kamryn Klinger and star defenseman Sarah Matuszek.
The four-year starter and now captain, Kamryn, looks forward to the season with high hopes, “Senior season, I want to go out with a bang. We fell short the last couple of years, and it’s difficult being there and falling short. The expectation for me personally is to go further, and emphasize communication, and as a team to push my teammates to go further, and just see if we could make it to the national tournament.”
Communication is a big point of emphasis for the team as a whole as they feature a defensive line made almost entirely of underclassmen. Sophomore Ava Anderson went down prior to their season opener with a fractured ankle. “Being young- it put something in our head that we need to learn quick and we need to learn now. We all lock in and lock in as an inexperienced team or fall apart being so young,” Ava says. “We’re doing a really good job of communicating and people are stepping up into their roles even if it’s a freshman or sophomore.”
Their youth is highlighted in their defense primarily in their goalkeepers with transfer Gianna Stanek, and returners Emily Norwick and Meadow Pratt, all being sophomores. Pratt speaks on the defenses’ youth, “Our underclassmen (class) is huge… We have a lot of talent, and we use that as motivation as opposed to competition. I think the inexperience isn’t bad, it’s just we have to communicate more.”
Despite the rough start the team’s confidence remains at a high as the program looks to its core values, E.L.I.T.E. The acronym resides at the heart of the team meaning; elevating your
attitude, leading with empathy, inspiring your growth mindset, transcending average, and embracing conflict.
Senior forward Mia Dosen says “E.L.I.T.E is something that helps us make sure we’re all on the same page and push through the beginning, middle, and end of the season. We definitely feel ready and even more hungry to keep going and build on the momentum we got last year.”
Sarah Matuszek, senior defenseman, adds to this “With how we ended last year we want to win this… the coaching staff set expectations and followed through in the preseason and hopefully continue it into the season.”
The coaching staff has steered women’s soccer to many strong seasons with numerous NACC Championship appearances with Coach Carlos Carillo at the helm.
“They’re passionate” Matuszek says praising the coaching staff. Dosen, comments more on Coach Carillo, “He wants us to succeed, and he loves to win and he wants us to have that feeling as well, through the hard work and sacrifice.”
Kamryn Klinger has been entrusted with leading the team on and off the field with the captain band, praising Carillo for his own leadership, “He runs a tight ship, which runs a level of discipline throughout the team. It’s very competitive and there’s a huge emphasis on communication.”
Coach Carillo has led women’s soccer since the 2013 season after having many successful years as a player at Dominican himself. He attributes his success to one key factor, “Family. Instilling that family with your players and getting them to understand that culture is everything. That’s the key to success.”
“We’ve created an environment that’s setup for success, we enjoy what we do and we understand why we’re here. To get an education and to compete for championships. Players want to have fun, winning is fun. How you have fun is winning games.”
As a program, women’s soccer has won four NACC tournament championships (2017, 2018, 2020, and 2021) under Carillo. The culture set in place is E.L.I.T.E and the young family that is Dominican women’s soccer this season will have their eyes set on yet another championship this season.
