The CSUN women’s soccer program was in turmoil in the post Covid-19 era. The Matadors had just seven wins in three seasons with Christine Johnson as the head coach. When CSUN athletics director Shawn Chin-Farrell made the decision to fire Johnson and hire Gina Brewer, a former head coach at the Division II level and most recently an assistant coach at the Division I level.
Back in late August and just four games into the season, I labeled Brewer as the coach that would reignite the once-proud program. Now, nearly three months later and with the Matadors’ season well over, it’s safe to say that Brewer has this program on the up and up.
Brewer was honest in her assessment of the team in the spring, but said the progress they made throughout the season has her hopeful that the program is heading in the right direction.
“I think we’re really excited about how it went. We weren’t sure when I got the job in the spring what would be realistic for us to achieve in the fall, but I think we’re really excited with the progress we made,” Brewer said.
Despite the Matadors finishing with the most wins since 2019 with five, CSUN dropped six games by one goal and Brewer said the team could’ve done even better in her inaugural year if those close results go the other way.
“We feel like we could’ve done better in a lot of the games where we lost 1-0 or 2-1…we think it’s just some small things we need to improve,” she said. “There were definitely some results we felt disappointed in, the good news about that is it shows you that we are capable.”
Brewer was put into a tough spot when she was brought aboard during the spring as the transfer portal was mainly picked clean, and the incoming recruiting class were full of players that were from the previous coaching staff. It didn’t matter to her as she went to work, not only with on the field instruction, but getting to know the roster off the field.
“You really gotta care about the human first. It’s like that saying, they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care…really truly caring about the players and getting to know their backgrounds is really important,” Brewer noted.
To me, a sign of a good and healthy program is seeing how players react under adversity. When the Matadors weren’t winning games and when they were tested against good opponents, the team never got flustered and upset.
When CSUN’s projected starter at goalkeeper, Hayden Mauldin ruled out with an injury to begin the year, Riley Liebsack stepped up with no hesitation and filled in admirably as she started every game this season.
However, with the full season under her belt and arguably more importantly a full offseason, Brewer feels like the program could take the next jump to become successful in the Big West.
With the way the team finished the season, ending the year off strong and barely getting eliminated from postseason contention on the final day possible, the CSUN women’s soccer program is definitely ticking in an upwards trajectory.
Brewer feels the same way.
“We really feel like we have some great new players coming in that could be really impactful,” Brewer added. “The future is bright.”
