— KJCCC RELEASE —
COLBY, Kan. (KJCCC.org) – 2023 NJCAA Division 2 Women’s Soccer National Runner-Up Johnson County Community College has been picked to win the 2024 Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference Division 2 women’s soccer predicted order of finish, as voted on by the six league coaches on Thursday, August 15th.
Receiving five of six possible first-place votes, the Cavaliers earned a total of 35 points to finish ahead of Neosho County Community College who was picked second with 29 points and the remaining first-place vote. Last season, Johnson County and Neosho tied for the regular season title with ties in each of their two regular season matches as part of 6-0-2 finishes in the KJCCC. The Cavaliers went on to earn one of four at-large berths into the 2023 NJCAA Division 2 National Tournament after falling in the North Plains District Title game to Northeast Community College with JCCC outscoring opponents 7-1 in their first three national tournament games to make the National Title match before falling 3-0 to Jones College.
As for Neosho, the Panthers finished last season unbeaten in the regular season with a 12-0-3 record with just three goals given up prior to postseason play where they saw their season come to an end with a 1-0 defeat to Allen Community College in the Region 6 Tournament. NCCC looks to be led by returning NJCAA All-American Olivia Gibson who ranked 14th last year in all of NJCAA Division 2 with 20 total goals and 13th in the country with 51 total points.
The rest of the preseason poll saw Allen picked to finish third with 25 total points followed by Hesston who tallied 19 points with both Highland and Pratt picked to finish in a tie for fifth with nine points each. Kicking off the 2024 campaign for the league will be Highland Community College at 1 PM on Thursday, August 22nd as the Scotties will play a non-conference match at Garden City with Johnson County also playing on opening day with a 9:30 PM (CT) match at Scottsdale Community College in Arizona. Allen will join the action the following day with a road match at St. Louis Community College while the remaining three teams will all start their season over the first seven days of the season with their first matches of the year. Conference play will begin on Friday, September 6th with Allen heading to Hesston for a 5 PM matchup.
