By Benjamin E. Lykens (Whetstone Staff Writer)

The women’s soccer team isn’t seeing red.

In fact, they didn’t see any red penalty cards – which mean a player is ejected from a game – handed out during last season.

The Wolverines were one of 82 teams to receive a NSCAA team ethics award.

The team received the silver team ethics award because they receive any red cards and only received five or fewer yellow warning cards.

Head coach Ed Muntz, who recently completed his sixteenth season as the only women’s soccer coach in Wesley College history, praised his team’s level of discipline.

“I think the team’s discipline on and off the field is very important,” Muntz said. “We try to represent the team and school the best we can.”

Muntz is a former Wesley soccer player and said he feels strongly about his team playing hard for his alma mater.

“You play for the name on the front of your jersey not the back,” Muntz said.

One of the team’s captains, Kim Fearnbach, a senior forward, said the team focused hard on rebounding from a poor season the year before.

“We had a view of what we wanted our season to be like because we didn’t want it to be like last season,” Fearnbach said. “We started off very strong at 5-and-1 but then had a few injuries.”

Fearnbach said the team’s other captain, Lacey Smith, was one of the reasons why the team was disciplined.

“She has a real clean style of play,” Fearnbach said. “She is very good with the ball and doesn’t ever let her emotions get the best of her.”

However, Fearnbach said just because you play disciplined doesn’t mean you aren’t playing hard.

“You have to be tough and physical,” she said. “But you don’t have to play dirty to play hard.”

Lacey Smith, captain and senior midfielder, said that both she and Fearnbach stressed the importance of team discipline from day one.

“The way I see it is as a player and a team your soccer abilities and skills alone should speak for themselves on the field,” she said. “Playing dirty is just displaying incompetence and it simply is a bad image. It’s not the kind of reputation we want to have so Kimmy (Fearnbach) and I brought the importance of playing clean to the attention of our team before the season. We did our best to lead by example on the field as well.”