Happy New Year!

The timeframe between college sports years always runs concurrently short and long. Less than three months separate last year's last championships with this year's first games, but the hibernation can feel like a lifetime. It doesn't take long, it seems, to recharge the batteries for the inevitable explosion out of the gate.

This week, that detonation occurs like clockwork, igniting the coming year with a thunderclap of games where scores count and results matter.

On Thursday, it all begins anew with the annual rite of women's soccer, where new Boston College head coach Jason Lowe will man his first game behind the bench of the Eagles against in-state rivals UMass and UMass-Lowell.

"It doesn't seem like it's been a long time coming, since I got here in January," Lowe said. "But it goes by fast. The players leave in May, and you wait a long time to get then back to get going. By now, we're ready to play."

Thursday's opener against the Minutewomen marks an entirely new day for an Eagle roster coming off a wildly successful but disappointing 2018 season. The team opened up last season undefeated in its first 10 matches, a run that included six consecutive shutouts. In late September, BC defeated No. 7 Florida State to match a program record for consecutive wins and rocket into the national conscious. Two weeks later, a win over NC State pushed BC to a 13-1-0 overall record and No. 11 national ranking. The momentum petered out from there, though, and BC won one game the rest of the season before falling to Hofstra, 4-1, in the NCAA tournament.

Lowe became the BC head coach just two months later, joining the Eagles from the Wake Forest team that handed them their first loss of the season. The road since has been about moving forward, a contextualization of sorts between what happened at the end of last year and where the team wants to go this year.

"The spring was really valuable for the returners," Lowe said. "The group chemistry has been great. Everyone uses that term, but it's really important and true. We put in a new culture from day one. There's a comfort with it because it's new for everyone. Nobody feels like they're that far behind based on what we're learning and trying to accomplish. They also know that they will learn the game, the more they play together and the more they get on the same page."

It's a team built by the perfect blend of youth and experience. The front-loaded senior class returns four of its five leading scorers, three of which are in their final season. Olivia Vaughn is arguably the most prolific in the bunch with 10 goals a year ago, but both junior Gianna Mitchell and Kayla Jennings each scored five goals. Gaby Carreiro is also back after scoring three goals, two of which came on penalty kicks, including one against Florida State.

"The way that we're playing now means that we can (attack opposing teams) from a number of different places," Lowe said. "In our exhibition this past weekend, Mia Karras had two assists and Erin Convery had an assist. Our freshmen all chipped in. So my hope is that every position can score a little bit different (from the rest), and each box score will be different. I want to see new names pop up from week to week and game to game.

"Then with players like Olivia and Gaby, there's a lot of experience," he continued. "They know how to score goals, but now the game is going to slow down for them a little bit. I want them to take advantage of that."

It's a system the new coach began phasing into the roster when he began his first training sessions in the spring. He spent his first months introducing the new language and terminology and reinforced it at the start of the fall when the freshmen arrived on campus. It allowed the older players to become familiar before allowing an organic adherence to the younger players.

It's a successful, team-building aspect built by the roster's aforementioned balance. Eight seniors perfectly bookend the nine-member freshman class, a rotation that will be infused with the presence of approximately 10 sophomores and juniors.

"The returners picked up where we left off in April in terms of how we want to play," Lowe said. "The language and ideas, we wanted to hammer it in (then), but we also have 11 newcomers that came in now. Yes, everything's brand new, but everyone has a high soccer IQ. Our returners did a great job of reinforcing the ideas through film and team meetings, and that's one of the upsides of coming to BC. Everyone's really bright, so they can study really hard and commit everything to memory. That's a luxury of being the coach here."

It's a transition already beginning a climb to fruition. After an intrasquad scrimmage in the first few days of training, the Eagles defeated Colgate last week in an exhibition at Newton Campus, 1-0. Three days later, they hit the road for a 3-1 victory against Vermont.

"Everyone came in and did a really good job since (the first day of training)," Lowe said. "But there's still that adjustment period to stretch out everyone's conditioning. We always had UMass as the game we wanted to be fully ready for.

"We had a scrimmage a few days into camp that served as 45 minutes' worth of playing time, to open things up a bit," he elaborated. "Then with Colgate, some players played some more minutes to see how they could do in game situations. With Vermont, the goal was to sub less so players could have 45 or 60 minutes on the field, instead of subbing on and off. That replicates what it will be like this weekend, where have to do it twice, right away. I think we're ready. They've done a good job preparing."

It all leads to Thursday's opener against the Minutewomen. It's the official start of 2019 for both women's soccer and BC at large, and it continues on Sunday against the River Hawks. Both games are at Newton Campus, part of a three-game homestand to start the season. Save for a Sept. 1 matchup with Princeton, BC won't leave Newton until its eighth match of the year: at Mississippi State.

"That Mississippi State game is by design because it's a few days before we go to Tallahassee to play the defending national champions (at Florida State)," Lowe said. "That's going to be the first time we get smacked with that brand of heat and humidity while playing on grass in a great environment. That's a lot to ask, so that's one that I told the team that they would be uncomfortable to face adversity. I want everyone to learn and see what they've got in those conditions."

The game against the Bulldogs leads into that game against the Seminoles, a nationally-televised matchup on the brand-new ACC Network. It also kicks off the grind against the rest of a conference that sent 10 teams to last year's NCAA Tournament. Seven of those 10 made the Round of 16, with both North Carolina and FSU advancing to the national championship game.

All except for one of the other ACC Tournament teams are on the Eagles' schedule. The only non-tournament teams in their ACC slate are Pittsburgh, a team they play on the road in October, and Miami, a team that tied the Eagles last season.

"The only thing that changes in the ACC is that teams reload and get better every year," Lowe said. "We always say it's the most competitive season from top to bottom. Everyone's either got new energy or is well established. You look at the rosters and it's scary for opposing teams outside of the conference. But this is why players come here. We want to play against those teams. But, then again, we know it's a long non-conference schedule to get through before we ever jump into that."

BC will play UMass at 7 pm on Thursday and UMass-Lowell at 5:30 pm on Sunday. Both games are at the Newton Campus Lacrosse & Soccer Field and can be seen on ACC Network Extra.

Boston College Athletics

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Gaby Carreiro

Erin Convery

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