By ANDREW GRIEVE

Contributing Reporter

The Oakland University women’s soccer team’s 2008 season will begin Aug. 22, when they face Michigan State. Judging from their recent history, they’ll have a lot to live up to.

Taking a look back at their fantastic 2007 season, the Grizzlies were quite successful. They won their sixth Summit League Championship in nine seasons wit a victory against Western Illinois at the OU Soccer Field to earn an invite to the NCAA Championship Tournament for the fifth time.

Unfortunately for the Grizzlies, they faltered in their first round game against No. 8 Purdue, losing by a 4-0 score, but getting to the NCAA tournament is nothing to sneeze at by any means.

The Grizzlies played a strong first period against the Boilermakers and went into halftime

scoreless, but couldn’t stop Purdue from scoring in the second half.

The prestige mounted further as senior forward Kristi Tomczyk received the honor of being on the Soccer Buzz All-Region third team, sharing the honor with only one other player from the Summit League, Western Illinois’ Ashley Hoch.

As the team played a small group of spring games against the likes of teams such as Eastern Michigan, Michigan State, Bowling Green and Kent State they left with positive hopes for the fall.

The spring practice games in particular extremely helped coach Nick O’Shea pick out the new team’s weaknesses, as well as figuring out their strengths. The team played against schools that they will be facing very early on in the season, such as Michigan State, whom they will face first, and Bowling Green, their third opposing team.

Eight new players will be making their appearance during this new season, to replace many of the graduated players in the midfield, backfield, and attacking positions.

The girls will start their 2008 season with an exhibition game at home against Northern Illinois on August 15th.