FULTON, Mo. - Under the guidance of Director of Soccer Tommy Nienhaus, William Woods University retains many regulars from a season ago to its 2025 roster, a third of which is newcomers, as the Owls look to shock the competition in their first season in the Heart of America Athletic Conference.

While preparing for its first season in the Heart of America, William Woods has the same individual coaching the women's and men's soccer programs for the first time in 18 years. The fifth person to do it for the Owls, Nienhaus shared how it has been for him managing both teams.

"It's been time-consuming," Nienhaus stated. "I don't say that in a bad way. This group, what I've seen so far, they're dedicated, they work hard, they don't make excuses. We've worked hard this preseason to change our style of play, and it's been a bit of a surprise, not a surprise in necessarily a good or bad way. It's just more because they were playing such a distinct style these last few years, that when we ask them to change, you never know what you're going to get until you actually start seeing it. 

"It's been pleasantly surprising, because I think what we're doing really suits this group, and I've seen more soccer out of some of them than I've seen in a long time, and I think it brings a little bit of a smile to their faces. They know the work, they can see that the work that they're doing is bearing fruit on the field, which just causes them to want to work hard and keep it up. 

"I think if you were to watch the two preseason games, and even after just 10 days of preseason, their growth and improvement have been remarkable. Still have a long way to go in terms of continuing to build how we want to attack, and obviously, it's the adjustment period that a lot of the newer players have, because about ⅓ of the team is new. But overall, I'm excited. That's probably the easiest way to put it. Historically, at the college level, having coached women per se, I've worked with women's players, but it was just one of those things where you have to learn how to manage time as a staff."

While the Heart Preseason Coaches' Poll, something the conference did for the first time this year, may have undervalued William Woods' standing, it's an added bit of motivation for the Owls to prove their doubters wrong. Nienhaus explained what his conference goal is for the team.

"The top six is one of their goals," Nienhaus said. "That's probably the simplest way to put it."

The top six teams in the Heart's Preseason Coaches' Poll are No. 12 Missouri Valley College (195.02 points; 13 first-place votes), No. 18 Central Methodist University (175.98 points; one first-place vote), No. 15 MidAmerica Nazarene University (168.98 points), Benedictine College (154.98 points), Clarke University (144.06 points) and Culver-Stockton College (119 points).

"We're the new person on the block, and obviously, it's historically been CMU's and Missouri Valley's conference," Nienhaus said. "We have to work to aspire to get to that level of consistency, which is going to be interesting. CMU is the conference opener, and I think that game is going to be…where we want to see where we're at after four games. But in terms of our process, in terms of our timeline, our ability to be as competitive as we want to be, that game is going to be very telling because there's no doubt that CMU is a fantastic team."

Outside of its conference goal, Woods' women's soccer team aims to establish an identity and be more interactive with other groups on campus. 

"I think we also want to establish a longer-term identity, just in terms of who we are, what we stand for on and off the field," Nienhaus said. "That's part of a little bit of a culture change anytime you have a head coaching change. It's something that I worked at the first year I was here on the men's side, and now we're just getting in the women's up to that speed, so to speak. But interestingly enough, it's more of a campus-wide culture, too. 

"Though that's one of our other goals, which is to be more interactive with groups. I've seen more interaction with the men's and women's programs here this year than I had in previous years. It's not only that. It's just interaction with other groups on campus, whether it's sporting events and things like that, too. That's just one of our community campus goals, in addition to our field stuff."

On the pitch, the Owls will rely on their experience to meet their expectations.

"Nine seniors, many of whom are four years," Nienhaus said. "There were a lot of junior college transfers that came in this year. Even though we have a lot of new players, four of them have college experience. There's enough depth with our backs and our midfielders. I was able to sign a couple of incredibly talented people over the last three months. What we've seen in practice so far, we're going to be surprising a lot of teams, including ourselves. That experience probably extends to most of our experience in the back, with people like Megan Schutze-Schweitzer, Lydia Sims, Aubrie Golus; they've played 3,000 minutes in their careers, and then you have other strong players as well." 

Entering her fourth and final year with William Woods, defender Megan Schutze-Schweitzer will be an impactful player in the Owls' lineup. Last season, Schutze-Schweitzer earned first-team All-American Midwest Conference, received AMC Women's Soccer Defensive Player of the Week once (an award typically given to a goalkeeper) and logged a team-high/career-high 1,782 minutes - 265 more than any other teammate.

"Simply put, she sets the tone," Nienhaus said. "She competes at a pretty high, tenacious level. Just with her actions, it's very hard not to want to follow somebody like that, just with how she competes. Overall, the simplest thing that she does is just set the tone, which also plays at a position that doesn't have a lot of statistics right there, as a center back. But she is a fantastic sort of eraser; she negates a lot of the other team's attacking quality, attacking presence. She helps negate a lot of that, very similar to what (men's soccer defender) Omar Murillo did last year, just she does it in her own way. She's one of those people that, when you coach her, she competes. We know that's going to be one of those difficult things to replace when she finally moves on." 

Another All-AMC returner for the Owls is second-team selection Megan Hughes, who had a team-high 67 shots and recorded four goals and four assists in 2024.

"A shooter is gonna shoot," Nienhaus said. "For me, Megan is one of those people that I have to figure out exactly where we want her, where we want her to play in our new system. Obviously, we want to put her in a position to keep scoring those goals. But what does that look like with how we want to play? Is she in the midfield? Is she up front? Those are things that we got to work out because she has some unique qualities that other players don't have."

A key position William Woods has to replace this year is goalkeeper after graduating Belle Boschert, who finished her Owls career with a program record 16 clean sheets. WWU brought back senior shot-stopper Sierra Hahn and has transitioned junior Zoe Hargis from midfielder to goalkeeper.

"There were some misfortunes that happened in the recruiting process," Nienhaus said. "When we started this fall preseason, we only had one official goalkeeper, and that's Sierra Hahn. She's been fantastic so far. Obviously, I've had conversations with her about needing to stay healthy because, much like other sports, when you only have one person at a key position, it becomes a little worrisome if and when that person happens to not be there.

"In the process, though, we made a discovery, and I want to pay special attention to Zoe Hargis, because Zoe has decided to transition into being a goalkeeper this year, and that's not an easy thing to do for an accomplished field player. Zoe's played a lot of minutes. She's obviously scored goals, and she's still capable of doing that. It's not like we're not going to possibly have her on the field, but Zoe, just because of her attitude, her team-first ethos, just who she is as a person, the willingness to want to do that and check your ego to help a team, and obviously play an important position, I can't speak enough about. Overall, though, she has embraced the training, she's gone all in. She is a naturally vocal person. Isn't afraid to assert herself, which are always key qualities that the position demands. 

"Simply put, she's an athlete, so she's capable of doing things. From what I've heard from coach William Francoletti, was that her learning curve has been fairly good, considering she's been playing the position for all of 10 days. Now obviously there's a lot of room to grow, but to reward her efforts, she will be given opportunities as well, whether that's a starter or somebody who's playing reserve games, I don't know. That's TBD, but we'll have to see where Sierra and Zoe are here in the next couple of weeks as we get those matches."

Outside of the All-AMC honorees, WWU's veteran defenders and the goalkeeping position, Nienhaus gave some other names that could play significant roles in the team this season.

"There's four junior transfers, and those are midfielder Giulia Starman (St. Charles CC), midfielder/forward Ellie Rodriguez (St. Charles CC), forward Ray Laster (Bethany) and forward MK Kgotlelelo (Mississippi Valley State)," Nienhaus said. "KG (Kgoltelelo) is a DI transfer, and she's going to be an impactful player we've already seen in the 10 days she's been here. Another freshman that was a late signing is midfielder/forward Laura de Vries. Laura (De Knipe, Netherlands) and KG (Preboria, South Africa) are the team's first internationals, so they do bring a little bit of that cultural differences, which are going to help the players grow and things like that, too. Those are probably the most, too.

"Starman and Ellie are coming off knee injuries, so long term, they're going to help. Laster has shown that she's a pretty versatile player, and she's a pretty feisty player when she competes. Those are all good qualities that we've seen. But overall, there's a couple of other freshmen that we've seen, Taylor Klein (Kearney, Mo.) and Addie Robins (Wentzville, Mo.), two midfielders that I think are going to help us long term as well.

"Overall, it's a solid group of players. There's enough diversity amongst the group, between the transfers and freshmen, positional diversity, and then obviously the cultural diversity. It's a good step and the direction that we want to go."

Along with the new faces in William Woods' squad, the Owls have an entirely new coaching staff. Joining Nienhaus are assistant coach William Francoletti and graduate assistant Ingryd Dos Santos Lima.

"We have a full-time assistant, William Francoletti, who has a lot of different experience," Nienhaus said. "He comes from the Atlanta area, not only that, he's going to bring his own recruiting contacts. He primarily works with the goalkeepers. And, he's been fantastic with Sierra and Zoe so far. He's also working with the men's goalkeepers, and that's really his only role with the men's team. He's primarily recruiting on the women's side and things like that. Then we have Ingryd, who coming from another NAIA school, already got some GA experience.

"Those two have been fantastic already, just with how they're interacting, I think they balance out myself. I also know that William has enough experience that if I have to step over to just handling the men, he's going to do a fantastic job when I'm not around. Overall, I think all our personalities are very well balanced. There's a good mix of energy, youthful optimism and some crusty old head coach stuff, but for the most part, I am really happy with how the entire staff worked out, because there are going to be times where even Ivan Lloay and Lucas Dehaan help out, and vice versa. Lucas has been around and is stepping up without being asked, and Ingryd has as well. It's been pretty remarkable so far. So, I'm happy."

Matchups to look forward to in the first season of a new era for William Woods women's soccer are No. 18 Central Methodist at 5 p.m. Sep. 6 in Fayette, Mo., No. 15 MidAmerica Nazarene at 1 p.m. Oct. 28 in Olathe, Kan. and Senior Day/regular season finale versus Benedictine at 1 p.m. Nov. 1 in Fulton.

"Obviously, we're gonna know where we're at right off the bat here when we play CMU in the early stages," Nienhaus said. "But I am interested to see how we interact with other Heart teams that we necessarily haven't played historically, for example, MidAmerica Nazarene, they've historically done well. And, it's just an interesting matchup, considering that they're near Kansas City, and we haven't really played them a whole lot. I will try to strive long-term to keep maybe some old AMC games present, but that's probably a '26 thing. The women haven't really mentioned anything specifically, although for the women's players, Senior Day is always going to be important."

The Owls officially open their 2025 campaign when they head down to Springfield, Mo., to face Evangel University (0-1) at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Coryell Field.

"It's seeing the day-to-day improvements," Nienhaus said. "They are learning to be uncomfortable every day, because my job is to push them, physically or technically or tactically and sometimes emotionally and mentally and things like that too, and to see them respond. Seeing them have success already in the short time that we've already been here is being fun, and that's why I can say with confidence that I know we're going to surprise a lot of teams."