Goucher Welcomes Back Ricketts '07 as Head Women's Soccer Coach

TOWSON, Md. – Goucher College Director of Athletics, Geoff Miller, announced 2007 Goucher College graduate, Stephanie Ricketts, to be the seventh head women's soccer coach since the school joined the NCAA in 1989.

Ricketts comes to Goucher from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y. where she spent a year as the head women's soccer coach and event manager. Prior to her position with Sarah Lawrence, Ricketts spent three seasons at Goucher as an assistant women's soccer coach (2013-2015) before moving to Sarah Lawrence in June of 2016. She also spent three years at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa. as a graduate assistant women's soccer coach (2010-2013) and assistant women's soccer coach at Adrian College in Adrian, Mich.

The Baltimore, Md. native takes over a team that went 7-9-1 during the 2016 campaign and graduated six seniors, including leading scorer, Samantha Turner '17 and finished sixth in the Landmark Conference with a 2-5 record.

"This was an accelerated but comprehensive national search, so we are excited to be able to welcome back one of our own graduates and student-athletes to be our next head women's soccer coach," Miller points out. "Stephanie Ricketts possesses so many qualities that we admire in our graduates:  she is mature, inquisitive, intelligent, articulate and a fierce competitor.  She also has significant recruiting experience, which is going to help this program move on to the next level.  She understands and embraces the Division III coaching model, and I am confident that our program is in excellent hands moving forward."

"I want to thank Geoff Miller and the rest of the search committee for this opportunity," stated Ricketts. "I am thrilled to come back to my alma mater and lead a program that means so much to me. To see the growth of the program over the years has been amazing and I am excited to continue pushing the program forward to new levels of success."

While at the helm of the Gryphons at Sarah Lawrence, a member of the Division III Skyline Conference, Ricketts led the team to a 5-10 overall record and 2-7 record in conference play, marking a program best for wins in a season and Skyline wins in a season. The squad was led by junior Sophia Spralja who notched 19 total points on four goals and 11 assists. She finished the 2016 season ranked seventh in the nation in assists per game and 28^th in total assists.

At Goucher as an assistant, Ricketts studied under the tutelage of Tati Korba, the 12-year head coach at Goucher from 2005 to 2017. Ricketts continued, "I was lucky enough to know Tati as my coach when I was a player and then as a colleague and a mentor when I became a coach. One of the things that I admire the most about Tati is her passion for coaching. She has built the women's soccer program into a competitive and respected program and I can't thank her enough for that. I'm looking forward to building on the strong foundation that she has laid for Goucher College soccer."

The Gophers won 20 matches over Ricketts tenure and placed four members on the All-Landmark Conference team.

Prior to coaching at Goucher, she served as a graduate assistant at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa., where she worked with all aspects of the program and focused on developing the goalies. The Titans were runners-up in the Presidents' Athletic Conference during Ricketts' first year in 2010, and her coaching helped goalkeeper Jenn Cantella earn First Team All-Region recognition from the NSCAA in 2012. From 2010 to 2012, Ricketts coached 12 players that received All-PAC honors.

Before returning to school to earn her M.Ed. in Education at Westminster, Ricketts was an assistant coach at Division III Adrian College from 2007-10. In her last season with the Bulldogs, the team placed second in the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association, and goalkeeper Steffeny Burns received second-team all-MIAA honors. During the spring of 2008, Ricketts stepped in as the Interim Head Coach for the women's soccer program.

As a student-athlete, Ricketts was a four-year starter in goal for Goucher, and she became the fourth goalkeeper in school history to record 300 career saves. In her senior season, she finished with the second-highest save percentage in the Capital Athletic Conference, accumulating a total of 149 saves and a save percentage of .823 that year. Ricketts graduated from Goucher with honors in 2007, earning a degree in psychology.

As a coach, Ricketts has a National "D" license from the United States Soccer Federation and a National Goalkeeping Diploma from the NSCAA. She has also served as a member of Women Leaders in College Sports and a representative of Women's Soccer for the Goucher College Blue & Gold Society.