Chapter closes for Baylor soccer seniors as Bears face season's finishing flourish (2024)

The back end of the season arrived quickly for Baylor soccer, and the Bears will be taking the field for their last two regular season home games this week, marking the end of an era for several seniors on the squad.

Ava Colberg, Ashely Merrill, Marissa Gray, Kai Hayes, Jordan Ryan, Haven Terry, Kate Zimmerman and Blythe Obar will be honored following Thursday’s match against Arizona State (7-3-3, 2-3-1). Gray, who returned to Baylor (6-5-3, 1-3-2) for her final year of eligibility after not seeing the field since 2019 due to injury, said that the way time has passed this season has felt abnormal.

“It’s honestly kind of weird,” Gray said. “I feel like it’s gone by super-fast but also really slow, especially on game days in particular — everything is kind of just in slow motion. I don’t know if it will ever like, fully hit me that I’m back playing and practicing and stuff.”

Obar, who will return to Baylor next season as she is using her redshirt year this fall while recovering from injury, will still be honored along her fellow seniors. The Frisco native transferred from Dallas Baptist when Michelle Lenard was hired to be the Bears’ head coach. Obar joined Merrill, who has been her teammate since their time at Independence High School in Frisco.

Obar said it will be hard returning next year without some of the current seniors on the team.

“Particularly Ashley — she’s been with me from like the very beginning of college. We were in high school together,” Obar said. “Seeing her grow and seeing how she’s turned into this whole new person, somebody that now I can even look up to and want to play for next year.”

Colberg, Zimmerman, Terry and Ryan were true freshmen when Paul Jobson departed the head coaching position in 2021. The quartet remained with the program through Lenard’s arrival and continued to contribute.

“We’re just really excited for this group of seniors,” Lenard said. “They’ve had a huge impact on the transition that this program has gone through in the past two and a half years now. Players that I personally am close with all of them and really going to miss all of them when this all comes to an end.

"They’ve really had a big effect on the change in style of play. I’m really proud of them for what they’ve done and the foundation that they’ve laid here for the foundation of Baylor soccer.”

The Bears’ season isn’t quite over yet though. Every game and every point matters as Baylor still has its heart set on the postseason. The Sun Devils sit ahead of the Bears in the Big 12 standings while West Virginia, who comes into town for a Sunday matchup, is one of two conference teams left on Baylor’s schedule that is ahead of the Bears in the RPI rankings. BYU who Baylor plays on the road next Thursday is the other.

“Every game right now matters for us significantly and we need to get some results in the next few games, so this is the next opportunity to do that,” Lenard said. “We’re at that point in the season where we can’t let it slip us by anymore. As for Arizona State — yes, in the standings we can jump them with a win, but also, we just need points in conference. There’s a lot of close positioning in the conference right now.

“This weekend, a lot of that will shift and change right away. If we can come up with two wins this weekend, everything changes.”

Lenard said that the Sun Devils opts to spread the ball across the field and that Baylor will look to exploit any gaps left open to control of the space and create opportunities for attack.

Arizona State’s two conference wins have come over Cincinnati and Houston and its lone draw was recorded against UCF. The Sun Devils will play TCU on Sunday, whom Baylor tied against, before taking on both Kansas schools and closing out the regular season against in-state foe Arizona.

Meanwhile, the Bears close out on the road against Utah and Iowa State after this upcoming two-match homestand.

“We’ve been trying to treat every game like a final,” Lenard said. “Our goals are hungry. We’ve obviously not been scoring a lot of goals recently, and we have players that are certainly capable of doing that."