By Steve Carpenter – Hutchinson Blue Dragon Sports Information Director
HUTCHINSON, Kan. (BlueDragonSports.com) – Since its inception, plenty of good things have happened to the Hutchinson Community College women’s soccer team.
The first Blue Dragon team played in 2005, and a total of 211 players have donned the Blue Dragon uniform since.
Eight Blue Dragon players have been named Jayhawk Conference Player of the Year while six others have been named KJCCC Defensive Player of the Year. There have been 130 Blue Dragons who have earned All-KJCCC honors, 103 have earned All-Region 6 honors, and 14 Blue Dragons have been named NJCAA All-Americans.
The Blue Dragons have amassed an overall record of 259-72-12, including a stellar 167-41-11 mark in KJCCC matches. The Dragons have won five conference championships and three Region 6 titles.
Through all that success there has been one constant – Head Coach Sammy Lane.
The only head coach in the history of the program, Lane begins his 20th campaign on Thursday when the No. 20-ranked Blue Dragons take on NOC-Enid at 6 p.m. at the Salthawk Soccer Complex.
“It’s hard to put into any context when you think about it,” said Lane, who was pouring over the last 20 years in his mind. “When I first started here, there were no cell phones. We all have new offices now.
“It seems like a lifetime ago, but some of it seems like it was just yesterday.”
Lane, a native of Ireland, came to the United States to play soccer at Sterling College as a goalkeeper. After graduating from Sterling, Lane played for the popular Wichita Wings indoor soccer team. When his playing days were over, Lane began coaching youth soccer in the Wichita area. He was also part of the Wings’ coaching staff.
While Lane was looking to coach at the collegiate level in the mid-2000s, Hutchinson Community College in 2004 decided to add women’s soccer to its athletic department roster of intercollegiate teams.
Lane saw the position announcement and rolled the dice.
“When all that happened, the Wings had just folded, and I was 31,” Lane recalled. “That was the first time I’d really looked at my life and wondered if this was still what I wanted to do.
“I applied (for the Hutchinson job) and came up for the interview. I didn’t hear anything right away, so I figured I had blown the interview. Right after Christmas in 2004, I was working for the mental health association in Wichita. I was driving down South Broadway and out of the blue, I get a call from (HutchCC Human Resources Director) Brooks Mantooth, and he offered me the job. I almost wrecked the car.”
Officially hired on January 13, 2005, Lane hit the ground running to fill out his first roster for the 2005 season. The inaugural Blue Dragon roster consisted of 17 players – 15 freshmen and two transfers – all from the state of Kansas.
While expectations for overall success in that first season weren’t high, that didn’t stop Lane from pushing that group to the limit trying to achieve what many thought it couldn’t.
The first game in Blue Dragon history was on September 10, 2005 at the Salthawk Soccer Complex against Neosho County, which was one of the top teams in the league at that time. Neosho County also had four games played by the time Hutchinson played its first game.
Down 1-0 in the first half, the first Blue Dragon goal in team history was scored by Beth Bevilacqua with an assist from Tiffany Sellers. Neosho ramped up the pressure on the Blue Dragons in the second half and came away with a 2-1 victory over the Dragons.
It didn’t take long for Blue Dragon Soccer to get that first program victory. Just two days later, the Blue Dragons traveled to Cloud County. After a scoreless first half, Jenny Mossman had a goal and an assist, Ashley Saiz scored and Lisa Benning had an assist as the Blue Dragons defeated the Thunderbirds 2-0.
That win started a four-match win streak for the Blue Dragons, who were 6-2 over eight games. The Dragons then went through a stretch of six losses in seven games, which tempered the season’s great start.
The final loss of that skid was a 2-1 overtime setback to league power Johnson County, but the team’s play that day provided a much-needed spark for the 2005 Dragons, who closed the regular season with wins over Cloud County and Coffeyville to close the regular season at 9-8, assuring the team of a non-losing season.
“I was just done with professional soccer and I had never coached college-aged kids. I treated those kids like it was a professional men’s locker room,” Lane said. “The fact that they all still spent time with me after all we went through that year, that is something that I will cherish forever.”
The story of the 2005 Blue Dragon women’s soccer team wasn’t done yet after the regular season.
Going on the road for the opening round of the 2005 Region 6 Tournament, the Blue Dragons were prohibitive underdogs to Barton, which won the regular-season matchup against Hutchinson 4-1. What happened on October 24, 2005 was the true sign of the future of Blue Dragon women’s soccer.
The Blue Dragons dominated possession from the opening kick. Just five minutes into the match, Megan Reffett scored from a Saiz assist. The Dragons got a huge insurance goal in the 79th minute on a tally by Bevilacqua and Mossman assist. The Dragon defense held Barton to just one shot on goal and upset the Cougars 2-0.
“At the time, you just want to win every game, ” Lane said of the importance of that single game. “With reflection, that was our first playoff win. We were a brand new program. Going to Barton to win that game, it made recruiting a little easier. Getting that sort of winning started then. Some other teams started soccer the same time we did and they didn’t get those milestone for three or four years.”
That victory ensured the Blue Dragons of a winning record in their inaugural season – Hutchinson has never had a losing season – finishing 10-9 with a Region 6 Tournament semifinal 2-0 loss to Johnson County.
Lane was named the 2005 KJCCC Coach of the Year, the first of his eight KJCCC honors.
One season later was proof of the upward trajectory of Blue Dragon Soccer. Hutchinson went 14-4 and advanced to the Region 6 Tournament championship game for the first time. Then in 2007, the Blue Dragons won their first Region 6 title with a 2-1 victory over Johnson County. Over a five-season span from 2008 to 2012, the Blue Dragons posted an 87-9-2 record.
“I look back and reflect a lot on those early years,” Lane said. ” I look back and think of some of those great players that we had from the Wichita kids to the American kids. I look back to our rivalry with Butler when it was really intense. The one regret I probably have is that I didn’t enjoy those years as much as I should have.
“I was obsessed by winning. If we were winning by eight, I thought it should be 10. I should have enjoyed the fact that we were special at the time and the kids were brilliant. But I look back at that period and I’m so proud.”
