Soccer (Women)

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Women’s Soccer

GW welcomed a new varsity sport to the Colonials in 1980. Women's soccer was off and running under Coach Rue Davidson and the leadership of Co-Captains Carrie Domenico and Kathie Wagstaff. Although the young program struggled in the early '80s, success was not too far away. Junior college transfer Diane Kelly came to GW in 1986 and rewrote the record books notching 96 points (44 goals, eight assists) in only two seasons. With her help, the 1987 team went 15-6-1 and ranked as high as seventh in the Northeast Region.

Former women's national player of the year Shannon Higgins (now Higgins-Cirovski) came to GW seven years ago after winning four straight NCAA Championships as a player at North Carolina. She has been molding her program into a nationally recognized team after inheriting a struggling program. The '92 women's team compiled a record of 8-8-2 under Higgins.

In 1993, GW finished second in the Atlantic 10 to U Mass, an eventual Final Four team. GW played seven nationally ranked teams, including Higgins-Cirovski's alma mater, 11-time national champion Tar Heels.

It was not until 1993 that the Atlantic 10 Conference sponsored women's soccer and in this inaugural season of competition the Colonial's lost the conference crown to NCAA Final Four entry Massachusetts.

In the '94-'95 season the team finished with a 12-8 record and ranked #15 by the NCAA. In 1996 the Colonials finished 10-7-4 and 6-02 in the Atlantic 10. They were defeated by Maryland in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. For the '97 season the team finished 13-6-2 and 10-3-0 in the A-10. The team had a 5-12-2 finish in 1999. In 1999 Rodriguez-Smith resigned as head coach with Tany Vogel, a 1996 GW graduate and four-year letter winner becoming the new Women's Soccer Head Coach.

(From the web page: [1] Tanya Vogel, a 1996 George Washington University graduate and four-year letter winner, begins her eighth season as head coach at her alma mater. Vogel, a member of GW's Athletic Hall of Fame, returned to Washington, DC in January of 2000, after serving one year as the assistant women's soccer coach at Cornell University, preceded by two seasons as an assistant at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Vogel took over a program that had won just three games in 1999 and has since built it into a perennial winner, witnessed with back-to-back 10+ win seasons in 2002 and 2003.

Vogel has also mentored 10 all-conference performers in six years, including 2002 Atlantic 10 Offensive Player of the Year Kim Warner. At Cornell and IUP, Vogel assisted in recruiting and fund raising, among other duties. As part of the 1999 Cornell coaching staff, she helped lead the squad to its first winning season in four years (9-8-1) and a postseason bid to the ECAC Tournament.

As a player at GW, Vogel was part of the school's most successful season, 1996, as the Colonials (10-7-4) earned a bid to the NCAA Tournament. She ranks sixth all-time at GW in scoring with 52 points (21 goals, 10 assists). Vogel served as team captain her junior and senior seasons and was named the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year in 1996, as well as a member of the All-Atlantic 10 Conference First Team. She was also named to the academic all-conference squad. The National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) also honored Vogel with Mid-Atlantic All-Region first-team honors in 1996. In January 2002, she became the first women's soccer player in GW history to be inducted into the University's Athletic Hall of Fame.

In addition to her work at GW, Vogel continues to develop young soccer players in the DC Metro area through her work at various camps and clinics. She currently serves as the head coach for two U-11 squads, the Bethesda Freedom and Bethesda Galaxy. Vogel also serves on the NCAA Division I Women's Soccer Committee and the NSCAA Women's Soccer Mid-Atlantic Regional Advisory Committee.

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Author or Source: University Archives subject files
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: December 21, 2006
Prepared by: G. David Anderson, University Archivist and Historian

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