2023 Indy Eleven W League season - They Run This Mutha

Photo Credit: Don Thompson Photography

It's been a couple of weeks since the Indy Eleven W League team went into Carroll Stadium as Valley Division and Central Conference champions and left as the W-League's Champions after a 2-1 victory over the Southern Conference's North Carolina Courage U23 team thanks to a 99th minute goal from Alia Martin. In the league's and the team's second season, Indy Eleven joined Tormenta FC as the league's first two league champions. Going into the game, Indy had not been selected for a single one of the league's player/coach awards. 

Not Coach of the Year. That went to Michele Krzisnik of Flint City.

Not the Golden Glove. That went to Bailey Herfurth of Tampa Bay United.

Not the Golden Boot. That went to Baylee Desmit of Christos FC.

Not the Assist Champion. That went to Katie Shea Collins of Tennessee SC.

Not Defender of the Year. That went to Tianna Harris of Minnesota Aurora FC.

Not Young Player of the Year. That went to Mia Oliaro of North Carolina Courage. 

And not Player of the Year (announced this week & not before the game). That went to Nadia Gomes of San Francisco Glens.

Photo Credit: Don Thompson Photography

Indy Eleven dispatched those last three players in the playoffs in route to the league title, proving that a collection of talented players don't have to win individual awards to be able to win the team award. [Edit: there were 5 undefeated teams in the regular season; Tampa Bay United, Oly Town, Flinty City, Minnesota Aurora, & NC Courage; Indy beat three of those teams on their way to the league title and had to beat 2 of them just to win the Central Conference.] Indy had four different players score at least 6 goals (Dewey - 7+2; Soderstrom, K. - 6+1; Whitsett - 6, Williams - 7+2), had 13 different goal scorers, and had a combined 10 shutouts in 14 games (Reason - 5+2; Edwards - 3). There were 6 players that scored at least two goals in a single game (Chester, Dewey, Kugler, Soderstrom, Whitsett (x2), Williams) and one hat trick (Dewey). Seven different players were credited with the game-winning goal. All that to say that this team thrived by being a team. It didn't matter who scored the goals or who saved the shots, but somebody was going to score the goal and somebody was going to save the shots. 

This was a true team and had success because they bought in to being a team and played for each other. Coach Dolinsky made some tactical adjustments throughout the season to put the team in a successful position, and the team had the talent and the desire to carry out those adjustments. Most notably, last year's leading scorer in Katie Soderstrom was asked to play a more defensive role in the game against San Francisco to help neutralize what the coaches had seen on video of Nadia Gomes, the league's player of the year. That takes a special player that is completely bought into the team-first aspect to play that role and a special coach to have faith in his players that they can carry out those tactics despite them not being their normal playing positions.

It's not difficult to be a fan of this team. They are talented, exciting to watch, and clearly played for each other and the City of Indianapolis. Obviously winning helps, but they're just fun to watch. There are times when my coverage of the men's team feels like a grind, but I never have that with this women's team. The St. Charles loss just proved that they are human and can have an off game. It was sad to watch, but I also think that this group of women used that down game as motivation for the rest of the season and helped propel them to the League Final victory.

Photo Credit: Don Thompson Photography

Indy made their run through the playoffs without players that had helped get them there. When the playoffs started, Indy was without Trinity Watson, who had played in 9 of the 10 regular season games, playing both defense and offense, because she had signed a pro contract in the Cyprus First Division. Hal Hershfelt had to return to Clemson before the playoffs started, and she had helped hold down the midfield for 8 games. Kanna Matsuhisa had been an exciting and dynamic sub off the bench before being injured with two games remaining in the regular season. Players like Rachel Dewey, Karsyn Cherry, Cassidy Lindley, and Kristina Lynch looked like they would have significant roles when the roster was announced, but played very few games due to injuries. That's how deep this team was that they could still make their way through the playoffs without so many key and talented players unavailable. 

Photo Credit: Don Thompson Photography

This year, Indy announced that they would be joining the USL Super League, which is slated to begin next year. The anticipated first division league is set to directly compete against the NWSL for talent, fans, and money. Once Eleven Park is completed, hopefully in the summer of 2025, Indy will begin playing in that league. It wouldn't surprise me if Coach Dolinsky isn't already in the ear of some of the players we watched this year, or both years. I think the midfield duo of Ella Rogers and Greta Kraszula are both juniors this year at Xavier and VCU, respectively, meaning that they should be scheduled to graduate in 2025. That's fortunate timing if they're interested in trying to play at the next level and like the idea of having the BYB behind them. We can only hope that they, and others, are interested in returning in the summer of 2024 to try and repeat as W League champions.

So we know that the play on the field was good. What about off-the-field? Last year, I had some complaints about how the club handled the team as it related to the gameday experience. Obviously, Indy has one of the best television/streaming productions of any team I watched this year. Greg Rakestraw, Angela Berry-White, Brad Hauter, Ian Gilmore, and the ISC Sports crew are on a drastically different level than the other productions around the division, conference, and league. I didn't have any issues with that last year, and they didn't disappoint this year. I appreciate that the club has treated the games they way they have and use a professional production crew for the streams. Other teams (*ahem* Louisville) have a long way to go to get even close.

Last year, though, I had some complaints about gameday posters and programs, and spelled out my reasons for my, and my female family and friends', complaints. In essence, I felt that the team could do a better job of being equitable in their treatment, even when they couldn't be equal in their treatment. The club still only created a single two posters for the team for the regular season, plus one poster for the League Final. Not great, but I'm probably yelling into the wind on that one. I assume the USL Super League team will be afforded the same poster tradition as the men's team.

One of my other complaints was about the lack of a program for the women's games. I even spelled out how a program could work, even at its most basic level, including the idea of getting a sponsor to help defray costs. To the club's credit, the team did a much improved effort on this front. There were programs this year that very similarly matched my idea, including having a sponsor for the programs. They were double-sided 8.5x11 sheets of paper folded in half to create a four-page program, but they were in color, listed the players for the game, included the division standings and a schedule for the rest of the games, and listed upcoming men's games or club camps. The one for the Final was even printed on fancy paper. Overall, it wasn't "equal" to the men's team, but I'm going to give a good solid "A" for being an attempt at "equitable," and was a marked improvement from the first season. I don't know if my article last year helped, but I would like to think that it did.

Attendance felt slightly down from last year, but there were still good crowds for all the game. Obviously the Final at Carroll Stadium was heavily attended due to the fact it was a final and that the club made it a doubleheader with the men's team's game later in the day, but the semi-final game was a packed house in the Grand Park Event Center, rivaling the attendance of the team's first game of last year. I hope that winning a league championship translates to a bump back up in attendance next year, but I don't foresee the team losing the core group of fans that have been supporting this team from the beginning.

Emma Thompson
Photo Credit: Don Thompson Photography (no relation)

I look forward to next year to see what that iteration of this team will accomplish. I suspect Coach Dolinsky will try, once again, to bring back a core group of players that were on this year's squad to help facilitate the continuation of the culture that surrounds this team now. We saw flashes of what is to come from Susie Soderstrom (I believe who is also graduating in 2025 at the same time as Rogers and Kraszula so could likely be persuaded to return next year) and Emma Johnson, who is still in high school. Susie may continue the streak of having a Soderstrom on the roster since her big sister Katie signed a pro contract in the Danish Superliga. 

I hope Bahr recovers from her injury and can play again. 

I hope Alia Martin and Maddy Williams can squeeze in another season in between their day jobs. 

I can't wait to see what other players Coach Dolinsky finds to add to the players that will be returning and replace the players that have moved onto other things.

2023 was an amazing season, and will be difficult to top, but I look forward to seeing what 2024 brings.

Photo Credit: USL W League Twitter

Soccer SupportHER

This is one of my, lately, rare articles that isn't specifically a game recap, end-of-year recap, another coach transition article, or one of my many stadium discussion articles. I think the last one was probably my discussion about my foray into the Scottish Professional Football League and my decision to start supporting Motherwell (as with my support of Purdue, the Cubs, Indy Eleven, etc... that decision has about as much/more grief as it does joy, but I don't regret that decision. I'm glad to be a supporter of Motherwell from across the pond, but I digress.). So I hope this article ends up being a coherent thought of all that I have been thinking this year as it relates to the title of the article.

First, a little background and refresher for the new visitors to the site. Soccer has been in my blood since I was little. With the exception of a single year where I was a 7th grade wrestler (average ability, but still the best in my school in my weight class, which was the lightest weight class available), I literally never played a single minute of another organized sport, and I grew up in Indiana where playing basketball for at least a season is nearly #StateLaw (my fellow Indianapolis residents will get that one). Like my wrestling ability, my soccer ability was average to slightly above average depending on the time/league, but a college career or a professional career were never going to be in the cards. That didn't stop me from playing soccer year round; club, high school, rec leagues, indoor leagues, I found a way to play. Until my body started telling me that I shouldn't play anymore, at an age when I wasn't really ready to give it up.

Photo Credit: @DLTPhotog

After a bit of a soccer hiatus for me, Indy Eleven was announced in 2013 and I was immediately in. I started writing about the games from the start of the first season and have continued to let my keyboard be the way that I experience soccer now midway through Indy's 9th season. There was a few year run where I was a coach for my kids' teams, but they moved onto gymnastics, so I was back to this for my soccer fix. While my focus over the years has always mostly been Indy Eleven, I also wrote about the USWNT and the USMNT in the early days of this site. Like many U.S. fans, I watch the men, sometimes out of a sense of obligation to support them, and I watch the women because I honestly enjoy watching them play. That fact that Lauren Holiday was from my high school just added another layer to my support for them. Until my above mentioned decision to support Motherwell, I didn't support any other clubs, just the national teams.

However, Indianapolis is not without soccer teams to support. By my count, there are (at least):

• Indy Eleven - men (pro - USL)
• Indy Eleven - women (amateur - USL-W)
• Lady Victory FC - women (amateur - WPSL)
• FC Pride - women (amateur - WPSL)
• FC Pride - girls and boys (amateur - Elite Clubs National League (ECNL))
• Indy Saints FC - men (amateur - OVPL)
• Indy Saints FC - women (amateur - WPSL)
• Old Bhoys SC - men (amateur - OVPL)
• Indiana Fire Academy (amateur - USL Academy)

That's what I can think of without trying that hard, and that list doesn't take into account Fort Wayne FC (men - USL League Two) or South Bend Lions (men - USL League Two), nor the roughly 30 high schools in Indianapolis (and however many more in the donut counties) or the 4(?) universities in Indianapolis that field soccer teams (same linked list + Purdue, IU, Ball State, DePauw, etc. within around an hour of Indy). Needless to say, if you want to watch soccer, you can probably do so on any day of the week, and multiple times on Saturday. 

So when Indy Eleven announced that they were going to field a women's team in the newly formed USL W League, just like the men's team, I was in. I just hoped that the schedule would allow for me to attend games. I wanted to more actively support Lady Victory FC last season, but, for some reason, the WPSL game schedule was filled with a lot of dates that I couldn't make. This is not my full-time job, I have a wife and kids with their own activities, and despite wanting to support the team, I wasn't successful at it. When Indy Eleven's schedule came out, it was more conducive to me making games, and I decided that if I was going to support them, I was going to do it just like I do for the men. That's why the articles on my site, and all the graphics, all have similar appearances. The women, even if "just" amateurs, were going to get treated by me just like the professional men. 

I hope that I have succeeded in that effort from the women's perspective. I have attended every home game. I sat in the press area and work on my articles (after the first game when the league and the mainstream media were in attendance, I was the only writer in the area, which isn't too dissimilar from the men's games if I'm being honest...), and I provide my thoughts on the games. I did post-game interviews with Coach Dolinsky and with the players. 

Whether they were being paid to play for the Eleven or not, I wanted to treat them professionally.

Photo Credit: @DLTPhotog

I'm ecstatic to see that there are others who treated these games the same way, Amanda Wallace and John Rice (Indiana's Mountain) are just a couple that come to mind. I'm less ecstatic to know that the club itself didn't always treat the team the same way. I have no doubt that they're going to use the women's winning of the Great Lakes division to promote the club, but I have struggled with how they promoted the team. The BYB tries to provide a similar environment, but I wish the club did more. 

Sidenote: I do have some issues with the BYB chants and heckling of opposing keepers. For all my talk that is happening in this article, it does feel like the heckling you would do of a professional male goalkeeper shouldn't be the same heckling you do of an amateur high school or college female. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but maybe take it down a couple of notches. 

For those who are unfamiliar or were not able to attend the women's games, here are just a couple of my (and some females that I know) objections to how the women were treated versus how the men's team is treated and my suggestions. 

Since the very first men's game, a game day poster has been provided to the first 500 hundred fans (I think that's normally the number), as well as a game day program. You can see a list of those posters here. What you'll notice is that there is only one poster for the female team's games; the very first one (which is a great poster from Laura Mills - see poster on the right). However, it wasn't until the Detroit City doubleheader that the women got another poster, and that's only because it was part of the doubleheader treatment. Apparently, the first poster was always envisioned by the club as a "one off" poster. I can tell you that it's not because there weren't artists willing to design the posters for the women. Nor were there game day programs for the women, except, again for that first game. I have been told from staff on the difficulty of providing a game day program for a team where the lineup can have as much fluctuation as an amateur team's lineup can experience. My argument to this is that the first program was a double-sided printed 11x17 page that was folded in half, and then folded in half again. It doesn't have to necessarily be a full-blown book, but something would be nice.

Why do I say this?

Photo Credit: Robbie Mehling

Because after that first game, I witnessed little girls (and boys) line up with their posters and their programs waiting to have these amazing athletes, females that they could look at and aspire to be like, sign their poster or program. I watched some little girls bring the poster back the next game to get other signatures. After that, there was never anything provided by the club for those little girls and boys to more easily facilitate them to have an interaction with Maddy Williams, Katie Soderstrom, Mackenzie Wood, or the McCarthy sisters. Those were potentially new fans that could want to see other games, maybe even a men's game. 

The club claims they want to grow the game, but, again apparently, without providing enough budget to do even what I would consider the bare minimum effort to help the fan experience. To me, it's not that difficult to at least look like you care, but not spend a ton of money. Print both team's rosters (Indy and the visiting team) on an 8.5x11 piece of paper so that fans can at least put a name to a number. Kids could get those signed if they wanted. If the numbers change (like the last home game where 14-year old Emma Johnson was wearing the jersey of #19 Selena Barnett), then have the PA announcer make an announcement about the name/number change. I just wish that instead of saying, "we don't have the budget" to do "equal" things for a women's amateur team as we do for a men's professional team, that they would have at least considered ways to do low-budget "equitable" things. I received a piece of paper telling me the rosters the last time I went to a high school game and that's, obviously, not associated with a professional organization. Grand Park seats around 1,000 people in the main stand, and that's been the announced attendance all season. That's 2 reams of paper at $15 per ream at Staples for a total of $30 so that fans know who is playing, and maybe even splurge and put the schedule on the back so that they know when they can see the team play again. So $30/game multiplied by 6 games, and you've spent less than $200. That's bare minimum effort to get you close to "equitable" even if not "equal," and that's more than what the club did this year for those kinds of things. Are there other expenses? Sure, but you're telling me that one of the club's sponsors wouldn't want to spend $200 to help cover the costs of those "programs" if their logo could be on it too? You can do the same kind of math with the posters. If you assume a crowd of 5,000 for the men (which is about normal these days) and 500 posters, that's 10%. 1,000 fans at the women's game multiplied by 10% = 100 posters. How much does that cost?

Why does this bother me? 

One because I'm human, and I hope, a good person and I don't think it's fair. 

Two, I have daughters and I regularly witness this kind of shit happening to them. 

Third, Indy Eleven NEEDS to grow their fan base. Every financial description from the club related to the future stadium has had the inclusion of a professional women's team to help make the stadium financially viable. You know how you have fans ready for that in 3 or 4 years? You treat the amateur team equitably or equally. Additionally, by my count, there were around 8 women on this year's Indy Eleven team who were on last year's division winning, and undefeated, Lady Victory FC team, including names like Soderstrom, Wood, Isger, Chatterton, Barnett, McLaughlin, not to mention Coach Dolinsky who lead Lady Victory and now Indy Eleven to winning seasons. You know who was on Lady Victory FC's team this year? Soderstrom's little sister Susie. Anna Isger, Abby's sister (I assume that's their relation). Including a few players who were playing (I think) for both Indy Eleven and Lady Victory like Chatterton, Dean, Barnett, Phillips, and Reason. 

Whether Indy Eleven's professional women's team is a 1st division team in the NWSL or a 2nd division team in the upcoming USL Super League, there is already an inherent connection between the Eleven squad and the Lady Victory squad, notwithstanding the fact that Dolinsky has coached both teams and works with the Lady Victory coach, Jimmy Carson, at Sogility! Treating this group of athletes and their fans well would funnel down into the next group of girls/women who may already be living in the same household as this current group. 

Photo Credit: Indy Eleven

Indy Eleven has claimed they want to be a premier club in the United States, regardless of division or league. To me, you do that by doing the simple things that I mentioned above. Indy may have one of the best streams for their USL W team than most other teams (thanks to Rakestraw and ISC Sports), but they are lacking on those other details. 

I also think that they have a responsibility to their own "brand." Ask Coach Dolinksy or any of the players that were on Lady Victory's team last year that were on this year's Indy Eleven team how many fans were normally at the games last year. The BYB didn't show up to those games (at least not in the same kind of numbers). I didn't show up at those games. The BYB was at the W League games because of the connection between the Indy Eleven and the BYB. 

If you want to grow your brand, it's all of those little details that can take them from a good club to a great club to a premier club. The USL W League has a hashtag of #SupportHER. I'm trying to do what I can, and I hope my club decides to do a little more for this team next year, particularly if Indy isn't one of the inaugural teams in the Super League.