Leaving Her Mark
August 28, 2009 07:52 AM | General
August 28, 2009
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| Kerri Butler |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The last time junior goalkeeper Kerri Butler and the West Virginia women’s soccer team traveled to University Park, Pa., they came away with one of the top wins in their brief but successful history.
WVU returns to State College this weekend where it is pitted against the fifth-ranked Nittany Lions on Saturday in a 7:30 p.m. match, and a noon contest versus Mountain West foe Brigham Young on Sunday. Both matches will be played at Jeffrey Field, where WVU is 2-1 all-time against PSU and made school history with its last appearance there on Nov. 24, 2007.
Battling on the road in front of a raucous crowd against the No. 5-rated Nittany Lions, the Mountaineers emerged victorious 1-0 to earn their first trip to the Elite Eight and garner their first-ever road triumph in the NCAA Tournament.
The emergence of Butler, then a freshman, was not just a short term thrill for the WVU women’s soccer program, but an exhilarating discovery of what was in store for the future. The Fredericksburg, Va., resident racked up a career-high six saves against the highly-seeded Nittany Lions.
Besides noticing the enormity of the fans that surrounded the stadium, Butler admits that her stellar, all-important performance in a groundbreaking match was one of her top feats ever as she enters the second half of her collegiate career.
“I don’t really know,” Butler said when asked where she would rank her performance in her last meeting against PSU. “I would put that game and the Notre Dame game (in the 2007 BIG EAST Finals) as the best games of my career.”
Only 13 days prior to her performance against Penn State, Butler made herself known by standing firm against the Fighting Irish in a penalty kick shootout. After two overtimes had concluded with a 1-1 tie, WVU earned a 1-0 advantage on its first PK before watching 2006 National Player of the Year Kerri Hanks step into the box for the Fighting Irish.
Butler stayed cool under pressure as the team’s conference fate rested on her shoulders, and her acrobatic save to the left against Hanks propelled WVU to an eventual 5-3 win in PKs. It gave the Mountaineers their first conference championship.
The calm and collected BIG EAST Academic All-Star once again looked the part in WVU’s shutout tie against Ohio State in the season opener last Sunday. Although she admitted to not having to work too arduously, making just two saves in as many chances, she was not shy about giving credit to her back line that prevented any reasonable scoring chances for the Buckeyes.
“The back line has been working incredibly hard for the past two weeks,” Butler added. “They have worked well together and have become a good unit. They don’t let balls get thrown over their heads.”
Butler was afforded an early opportunity to get her feet wet as a freshman when she made her first career start in a 5-3 win at Georgetown. A confidence boost from coach Nikki Izzo-Brown and the rest of the WVU coaching staff helped jumpstart the former Courtland High standout's collegiate career.
Just as important, Butler handled the beginning of her first season - in which she started as the team's backup - with nothing but class. She understood the importance of having a veteran stopper between the posts, and figured her time would come eventually.
“We had an upperclassman (in net) that didn’t have a real chance to prove herself and the coaches wanted to let her progress,” Butler said. “It was one of those things where I expected to sit out for a while. I didn’t really expect to get in that year.
“I remember the day I got thrown in for the first time. The coaches’ were like, ‘Kerri, you’re in,’ and I was pretty surprised.”
Through her first two seasons, Butler ranks right up with some of the best net-minders in WVU women’s soccer history. Prior to her performance against OSU, the exercise physiology major’s career 0.56 goals against average presently ranks first at WVU, while her 2106:41 minutes in 2008 were the most by any goalkeeper in school history.
Even more impressive, she has put forth a surplus of extraordinary performances against some of the best teams in the country. With the WVU coaching staff scheduling aggressively year after year, Butler likes the fact that there are no light challenges on the road to the College Cup.
“I think I can speak for the girls on our team when I say that I love it,” Butler said of playing constant quality competition. “We would much rather play a Penn State then somebody that we can blow out. (Blowouts) are not fun, exciting games. For me, it’s one of those games where all you do is look at your toes. It’s better to play a nationally-ranked team.”
And the Mountaineers will prep hard for their first Top 25 test this season. They will also take the unselfish approach by working cohesively as a unit, spearheaded by their goalkeeper who earned the first BIG EAST Goalkeeper of the Week Award this season, yet chooses to rally around the team’s collective performance.
“It’s more of a motivation factor,” Butler said of earning the honor against Ohio State. “I’ve never been really big on the awards. “They are great to achieve, but for me I think achieving our team goals are a lot more important. I was more excited that we played well against a good team in Ohio State.”
