After years of middling success in the WAC, the New Mexico State women’s soccer team looks to shift the tide of the program with a strong first season under new head coach Rob Baarts.

Baarts, who was hired in January after former head coach Freddy Delgado’s contract wasn’t renewed, has had success on both the field and the recruiting trail as an assistant coach at San José State and Portland University, reaching multiple NCAA Tournaments and even bringing home a national championship for the Pilots in 2005.

While winning games and fairing well in conference are obviously goals that the Aggies want to deliver on, Baarts’ main focus in his inaugural season is to establish a successful culture that will be around for years down the line.

“When you come in to a program, you have two choices: you can bunker in, survive and try to sneak wins out by playing the ball over the top, or you can put a stamp on what you want it to be. What we talk about every day is how are we going going to change the program for 10 years? 15 years? 20 years? Not just one year,” Baarts said when asked about setting a foundation for the program. “We have to go through a huge learning curve. It’s a process… one of the things that the girls talk about all the time is just trusting the process.”

Baarts plans on putting his stamp on the program by implementing a ball playing style that allows New Mexico State to control the game with possession, primarily in the midfield going forward.

With a new style of play, the inevitable learning curve will be a challenge for the players, especially upperclassmen who have spent years in a different system, but senior forward and all-time leading goal scorer Aileen Galicia is confident that all the changes Baarts has brought to the program will lead to success for the team.

“The practices have been a lot more intense, which is good because it prepares us for the games, but basically everything has changed,” Galicia said, welcoming the adjustments made by Baarts in his first year at the helm. “The organization, the communication with everyone, it’s just gotten a lot better. We have some good things to come for us.”

Last season, Galicia earned First-Team All-WAC in what was one of the most successful seasons to date for NMSU’s women’s soccer program. The Aggies finished with the second most wins in program history (with a 9-10-2 mark) and beat rivals UNM and UTEP in the same season for the first time ever, but were bounced in the opening round of the conference tournament. With how successful New Mexico State is in the WAC in just about every other sport, there’s no reason women’s soccer can’t be on that level, which is exactly why Baarts was hired.

The team returns a majority of last year’s difference makers, but will need to replace the few seniors lost from a leadership perspective — something that Baarts said they’ve done a good job with despite having so much to learn.

“We have a good group of seniors… we have plenty to get by, but the problem they’re having is it’s hard to lead and still be learning so much new stuff,” Baarts said. “It would be different for this freshmen class, when they’re seniors because they’ve been through it for four years — it [won’t be] all new to them, whereas our seniors [now] are getting all new information and trying to lead new players that also don’t know. I think they’re doing a great job considering the circumstances.”

New Mexico State dropped their preseason scrimmage against Arizona State over the weekend, but are back on the pitch this Friday when they take on San Diego State for Coach Baarts’ competitive debut, in what the Aggies hope is the start of a long, prosperous epoch for NMSU soccer.