Above photo: Last season, UMHB women’s soccer went 13-4-2, reaching the ASC championship game for the eighth straight season. They’ll look to keep that streak alive in 2025. (Photo courtesy of UMHB Athletics)
BELTON — There are times when Barry Elkins glances at his team’s 2025 schedule and still can’t quite believe it. It is arguably the toughest batch of non-conference opponents he has ever assembled in his 14 years leading UMHB women’s soccer, a daunting slate headlined by national champions, highly-ranked contenders, and a particular former conference rival.
Over 18 months ago, when he began scheduling games for the 2025 campaign, significant uncertainty surrounded the future of the American Southwest Conference. It left every coach, Elkins included, in limbo, as the number of non-conference games they would need to fill the schedule remained unknown.
But Elkins knew it’d be far more than what the norm had been since taking over what is now one of Region 10’s premier programs in 2012. So he picked up the phone and began calling coaches across the country, including several of D-III’s top-tier programs, looking to get games on the books. It turned out there were quite a few coaches needing games just as badly.
“There were so many questions [at that time],” Elkins remembered. “So it literally was, ‘Hey, do you want to play?’ ‘Sure, I’ll play you.’ ‘Do you want to play?’ ‘Sure, let’s play.’
The product? One of the most high-caliber schedules found anywhere in D-III women’s soccer this fall. Four of UMHB’s 10 non-conference opponents—Christopher Newport (Sept. 5), Misericordia (Sept. 12), WashU (Sept. 20), and Trinity (Sept. 27)—open the season ranked in the Top 10 of the United Soccer Coaches Preseason Poll. Of those four, two are in the Top 5, and The Cru will play both away from Belton, taking on No. 1 WashU in Memphis, Tennessee, two weeks after visiting No. 3 CNU in Newport News, Virginia. Both programs reached D3’s Final Four in 2024, with WashU winning its second national title since 2016, completing a dominant 23-0-2 season by hoisting the championship trophy in Las Vegas. Misericordia begins 2025 ranked No. 7 and Trinity is ranked No. 10. Both programs will face The Cru in Belton.
Beyond the Top 10 club, both Virginia Wesleyan (Sept. 7) and Rhodes (Sept. 21) reached their respective conference tournament title games last fall. Puget Sound (Aug. 31) finished as the runner-up to nationally-ranked Pacific Lutheran in the Northwest Conference. And Concordia, up first on the slate for Friday’s opener in Belton, comes off a big year in the SCAC, as the Tornados improved their win total by seven from 2023 and reached the SCAC semifinals. All 10 of UMHB’s non-conference foes posted a winning record a year ago, yet another testament to the fact that The Cru won’t have it easy at any point over the next three months.
“It’s said as a cliche, but we will be battle-tested by the time we get to conference,” Elkins said with a laugh. “There is no doubt about that. We will have faced some of the best competition in the country by the time we hit conference, so I’m hoping–and planning—on the pre-conference games to really get us prepared.”
There’s also a challenging side of such a headline-worthy schedule, though. Not that any win comes easily, but when every opponent is a legitimate conference contender and a little less than half are in the national title conversation, stringing together a win streak becomes far more difficult. All four of UMHB’s matches against Top 10 teams will come in September alone, which increases the chances of mental fatigue setting in early. That is exactly what Elkins is aiming to avoid.
“The hard side is making sure we’re mentally stable if we were to go winless against four Top 20 teams,” Elkins said. “In all technicality, we should lose those games; they’re ranked higher than us. But even if that happens and you lose all four, you’re still probably a pretty good team. You’re just facing the mental struggle and having to remind them, ‘Y’all are still a really good team, you just have to keep believing in yourselves.’”
Of course, that’s all hypothetical. At the back of their minds, nearly every coach thinks through all the possible scenarios to be ready to handle them down the road. The same would hold true if The Cru manages to go 4-0 against that elite competition, except the struggle then comes with fighting potential complacency heading into the heart of ASC play.
For Elkins, that’s part of why so much importance is placed on selecting the right team captains and building leadership as players progress through their college careers. In the peaks and valleys of a season, especially going through a gauntlet of a schedule, it will be trusted veterans who keep The Cru focused on the overall pursuit and not just the final result on a particular evening.
“We are not valued on how we are doing on the schedule,” Elkins added. “We’re valued on how we’re doing as a team. How we’re working hard. How we’re progressing. That’s been more of our focus. The wins will come eventually. It could happen the first game, or it could happen when we go to Christopher Newport. But that’s not our focus, to be honest.”
They’ve already faced one outside opponent as part of their preseason preparations, and it was a familiar one. On a familiar field. Played at a familiar pace. Last Saturday, six days before the scheduled kickoff of their regular season opener against Concordia at home, The Cru made the drive north to longtime ASC contender UT-Dallas for a scrimmage. This season will be the first in which UTD is not part of UMHB’s slate—the Comets are now full members of Division II—and because of that, several of The Cru’s more experienced contributors were on the field just two years ago, when UTD was still a full member of the ASC.
While UTD’s roster looks far different this fall with a large group of newcomers, the Comets’ play style remains very similar to what it was in its final years in the ASC, creating a unique element to the scrimmage for The Cru. In past seasons, UMHB faced at least one non-D3 opponent as part of the early weeks of fall camp, but none of those opponents had any sort of recent history against the Crusaders.
“That was very intentional on both of our parts, both the UTD coach and myself,” Elkins noted of scheduling UTD for his team’s preseason contest. “He brought in a bunch of transfers and freshmen, so he basically had a new squad, but he knows how we play, and we’ve competed against each other. So he was using our scrimmage to judge how much [his team] improved since last year. And for me, it was the same thing. I have a largely unproven group, but I know how we did [against them] last year. So we were both pleased because we were able to judge our squad off of some history.”
Nobody really wins or loses in a preseason exhibition. The focus for both sides is on finalizing lineups, identifying what groups of players fit well together on the field, and gaining the experience of going toe-to-toe in a live setting against players other than your own teammates. But even with that understanding, Elkins said, his team came out with a heightened intensity in the early goings, and UTD matched that.
“Having played them in conference, you want to win,” Elkins said. “I don’t think you win or lose a scrimmage. But the first 15 minutes, you wouldn’t have known it. Both teams were going hard because we’re used to playing them. My kids went out there and competed hard in the first half, and part of my speech at halftime was like, ‘You know, it’s still a scrimmage,’ because they were just going so hard. But that’s what you want. They were at game speed from the first whistle because it was UTD.”
It was yet another step in the right direction for a team that seems to never lack depth, even as it graduates All-Region standouts year after year. A solid showing through the spring laid the groundwork for what UMHB has accomplished so far in the fall, and that progression has given way to optimism from Elkins as he talks about his squad.
The back line will be a strength yet again, led by ASC Preseason Defensive Player of the Year and captain Malyn Martinson, along with top returners Allie Angell and McKenna Prichard. There is exceptional depth up top at forward, with several different players competing for spots in the starting lineup; truly a good problem to have, but one that makes filling out a lineup card more difficult than in years past.
The midfield is where UMHB lost the most experience from its 2024 team that went 13-4-2. All four starting midfielders—leading scorer Natalie Mason, Breland Mungia, Kelsey White, and Morgan Rathmell—graduated, which would usually be cause for concern. But in this case, the group positioned to step up has been prepared for quite some time.
“I’m walking in with an unproven group, but they’ve really been waiting in the wings,” Elkins said. “They’ve learned from [those seniors], practiced with them, watched them, and in some cases, we’ve thrown them in the games, to where they’re now ready to go. I had a little moment going into the UTD game where I wrote the lineup out, and it kind of took my breath away like, ‘Oh man, no Morgan, no Natalie, no Kelsey, no Breland. If this doesn’t work, what am I going to do?’ But then we went into that game and really controlled the middle.
“I thought, ‘Okay, it worked.’ I was really happy with those three [who started], and then I bring in another group that has two freshmen in it, and they did a good job. We have the players who have been there and done that a little bit, maybe more in practice, but they’ve learned from the group in front of them. And then we also have younger ones filling in the gaps.”
There are known quantities on this roster, from Martinson to fellow captain Ella Ruff to junior forward Trinity Hoffman. In total, six Crusaders return after recording over 800 minutes last season, and that group will be a centerpiece of what the team aims to accomplish. Included in that group is junior midfielder Kaitlynn Neill, who Elkins said has been “the surprise” through UMHB’s spring and preseason training. While Neill was a fixture in the lineup in 2024, making 16 starts and playing the third-most minutes of any sophomore, she did so at right wing. That changed late in the spring, when the coaches made a key position switch as they searched for the right combination in the midfield.
“We moved her into the holding mid position, which is really the anchor to our team when you look at how we play and some of our success,” Elkins said of Neill, who had a goal and two assists in 2024. “Having Shay [Taylor] and Kelsey [White] there for the past four years, to move a right wing in and expect her to do a good job is a little crazy.
“We did it late in the spring, because we were seeing some things that were really positive about her. You would think she’s played there her whole life. She’s doing great. That was a huge weight lifted off.”
UMHB’s opponent in its season opener is one with which The Cru is well-acquainted. Concordia enters its second year in the SCAC after a long run in the ASC, and as Elkins is quick to note, it was Concordia, not Hardin-Simmons, who was UMHB’s “direct rival” for quite some time, even with UMHB holding a considerable win streak against the Tornados.
With the programs, who are separated by less than 60 miles, only a couple years removed from battling annually in the regular season finale, Friday’s match will have more meaning than the average ASC-SCAC crossover. It will be the third time UMHB and Concordia have faced off as non-conference opponents.
“Five or six years ago, people would always talk about, ‘Oh, your rivalry with HSU,’” Elkins recalled. “To have a rivalry, we would’ve had to win [against HSU], which we eventually did. But that’s to say, Concordia was our direct rival [for quite a while]. So that’s going to be a competitive game on Friday.”
UMHB kicks off against Concordia at 5 p.m. CT in Belton on Friday night. The Cru hopes to extend its win streak against the Tornados to 19 consecutive games, as well as its non-conference home win streak to 13. UMHB has won every non-conference match played in Belton since Sept. 14, 2019.
