The Ohio State’s women’s club soccer team offers an option for women who desire to play competitive soccer but are not on the varsity team.

The squad plays on the Larkins fields and has been a part of OSU for 28 years.

The team is a member of the Ohio River Soccer Conference. Other members of the conference include Bowling Green, the University of Dayton, Kent State, Miami University, Michigan State, Michigan, Ohio University, West Virginia and Penn State.

The club team plays during the fall, winter and spring. In the fall they compete in about 20 conference and non-conference games. During the winter they play in two indoor tournaments, as well as other scrimmages and in the spring they are involved in several individual matches and 10 tournaments.

Senior captain and leading scorer Jen Dues (13 goals, 2 assists) has had a positive experience as a team member.

“It’s a lot of fun. You get to play the sport that you love. You still have time for school, work, any extracurricular activities that you want to do, and then you end up being best friends with everyone on your team,” she said. “It’s a great way to meet people.”

Goalkeeper Sue Gadd enjoys the challenge the games present to her.

“It’s good competition so you feel you’re improving your skills still, instead of just playing around,” she said.

OSU women’s club soccer coach Jim Stevens said some of the teams in the conference have a lot of talent and athleticism.

“The top four teams of our region, which are us, Michigan, Michigan State and Miami, would give any Division III team a hard game,” he said.

The team performed well during the regular season, compiling a 12-6-2 record, and has been chosen as one of 16 teams to participate in the NIRSA championships, which begin Thursday in Bakersfield, Calif.

“It’s pretty exciting that we’re leaving for nationals (tomorrow),” Dues said. “We definitely have been building towards that since the beginning of the season.”

The team will play their first match Thursday morning against Virginia Tech and will take on Colorado State later that afternoon. Thursday’s games will be followed by two additional games on both Friday and Saturday.

“We feel really confident and we had a really strong season,” Gadd said. “This is my third year on the team, and it’s the strongest team we’ve had yet.”

Stevens said she appreciates the dedication his team has shown.

“They work really hard,” he said. “They begin practice Labor Day weekend, so they have put their time in.”

With the recent success of the women’s varsity team, who went to its first NCAA tournament this year, Dues said her team is not overlooked by the varsity squad.

“I don’t think of it as a shadow because we’re completely separate,” she said. “We have our own championships and they have theirs.”

The main necessity to keep the squad competing is money.

“We fund ourselves – we don’t really get any university funding. We do a lot of fundraisers, and that’s how we keep it going,” Dues said. “We’re lucky to have a great coach who goes above and beyond what he needs to do to keep us successful.”

For anyone interested in playing on the club team, tryouts are held during the first week of winter quarter.

“We invite anyone who would like to try out to come out,” Dues said.