Kedarjah Lewis’ ROTY shows glimpse of potential for Iona future
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. (BVM) — Freshman Kedarjah Lewis was voted the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference women’s soccer Rookie of the Year at the 2021 MAAC Women’s Soccer All-Conference Awards. The award spotlights the potential Iona and head coach Tom Plourde have with his team for the coming years.
Lewis was an integral part of Iona’s team. Even though she’s a freshman, she was able to just make the top-10 goal scorers with her five goals. She was the most clinical on the team with that tally. She was able to bag two assists in addition to her five goals.
The freshman is only the third-ever MAAC Rookie of the Year in Iona’s women’s soccer history, behind Erica Keller in 1995 and Gabby D’Aprile in 2009. She was also voted onto the MAAC All-Rookie Team. She joins teammates Samantha Hogan, Emma Havrilla and Faith Preziosi as the most recent players to earn the accolade.
The individual success of Lewis is a spotlight onto the overall success of the team, even if they didn’t bring home the MAAC championship. Lewis’ ability has been noticed and separated from her team, but her stats and plays aren’t so separated that they’re a driving force on their own. She’s been able to be a bigger cog in the grand machine that is the Gaels, but the fact is that that machine finally has more cogs overall.
When Plourde took over in 2019, the team’s stats looked much different. Two major players on the team, Preziosi and Amber Crispin, led the team to victories most of the time. Preziosi managed eight goals in 20 games while Crispin netted nine in 19 games. The two were Iona’s best at the time and Plourde was forced to play around their talent to help the team succeed where available.
The plan was solid on paper but not so much on the pitch. Iona ended seventh in the MAAC with 23 goals in 2019. This season, they ended fifth with 27 goals. A major difference was that everyone on the team had chances to score on the pitch. In 2019, only six players scored goals for Iona. In 2021, 12 players scored for the Gaels. Plourde’s game plan has become less about playing around specific talents on the pitch and more about a structurally sound team that can put up results no matter who’s on the pitch.
While the plan may be in motion it’s not set yet. Talent is still being leaned upon, though in the right way. Lewis is being played in ways to bring out her goal-scoring ability, while Preziosi and Kiera Haggerty are put in positions that best exploit their assisting abilities, as they’ve both had six in 19 games. This type of team building based on talent is the way to create success, even if little by little.
Iona still has quite a road ahead of them. Despite all the changes between 2019 and 2021, they still exited the MAAC Championships with a 0-2 loss to Siena, just like they did in 2019. In the bigger picture, though, it’s clear to see Iona is moving in a more team-focused direction, and with players as good and as young as Lewis at Plourde’s command, the potential for Iona to become a title-winning team is there.
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