With six straight losses, Northwestern Women’s Soccer looks to be a different team than they started the season with. Anya Weerapana reflects.

As the twilight of this column begins to set in, it is time to look back to the very beginning of this season in mid-August and reflect on the journey that Northwestern Women's Soccer has taken us on.

Back then, Northwestern had a young roster eager to take on top competition. The Wildcats putting one past Virginia on Aug. 12 in a game they were outclassed felt like a sign of their future goal-scoring capabilities under pressure.

Flash forward two months and five days, and Northwestern has dropped two consecutive games to bottom-of-Big-Ten competition Maryland and USC in a stretch of games that were critical to its making the Big Ten Tournament. The team now sits at 5-10-3, its lowest winning season since 2019.

A pair of losses against Illinois on Thursday and Purdue on Sunday has brought Northwestern's losing streak to six.

I called this column "reflections" because I wanted to look back at the team's season. Like a mirror, however, we should also see the realities of what we look back on without any sort of embellishment or post-hoc sugarcoating.

The worst part about this year was that nearly everything that went wrong was out of the Wildcats' control. Keira Kemmerley, then Kennedy Roesch, then Ava Goodin ended up injured and done for the season; Nyamma Nelson and Megan Norkett were suspended for a game each after receiving red cards. Every single tactical switch on head coach Michael Moynihan's part felt it was less out of his own volition and more out of actual necessity.

Just five players — including Kate Hennen and CJ Roy, who normally have not gotten starts this season — carried over from the starting lineup against Virginia in Northwestern's most recent matchup against Purdue. That fact alone shows how much turnover Northwestern has had to deal with all year.

Change, however, can be a good thing. We saw a handful of stars break out in the first-year recruiting class: Elle Phillips, Gwen Zimmerman, Naomi Lofthouse and Camryn Freeman, who surged forward in the last third of the season with five goals to become the team's out-and-out goalscorer. We saw a handful of returners re-establish their marks: Alex Fallon and Holland Carey, both returning from injury, made a significant impact on and off the field for this program.

Though we don't know what Northwestern's recruiting class is going to look like next year, one can hope that the recent success Moynihan has had picking players up from top Midwestern clubs will translate for the third year in a row. Northwestern's injuries this season have meant that this year's freshman class has had a level of autonomy in their play one could only dream of, and that will surely set them up for success on the collegiate level next year. One year older, one year wiser, as they say.

With Northwestern being squarely out of contention for the Big Ten Tournament this season, it has unsuccessfully managed to replicate last year's on-paper accomplishments. But I'd like to make the argument that this season has shown the team how flexible it can be, how it can cultivate goalscorers off its bench and how it can move around formations from a three-back to a four-back and do so with a backup goalkeeper in net.

This year has been the year of lessons for the Wildcats. And while that isn't their fault, their season is so much more than their record. Because, as this year has shown us thanks to Northwestern Lacrosse, Field Hockey and Football, any comeback is possible — whether that's physical or metaphorical.