Gateway grad Maddy Neundorfer off to strong start in final season at Duquesne

Maddy Neundorfer said her collegiate career has flown by, and the Gateway graduate and starting goalkeeper for the Division I Duquesne women’s soccer team hopes she is on course to make her final season with the Dukes her best yet.

“I am super excited for this last season,” Neundorfer said. “We have a really strong team, and I’m looking forward to starting our Atlantic-10 (Conference) games.”

Neundorfer said an end-of-the-season meeting with coach Al Alvine in November was helpful in charting her offseason work.

“I wanted to make sure I was better at coming out for high balls in the air and being more aggressive, things like that,” she said.

“Over the summer, playing with Beadling on my (Women’s Premier Soccer League) team, I really tried to work on that stuff, trying to put myself in several uncomfortable positions to see how I would respond. That really helped me.”

Neundorfer joined several of her Duquesne teammates on the Beadling team as they traveled throughout the region for games. Alvine said he could see how much the WPSL games helped Neundorfer raise her game to the next level.

“Maddy’s looking as good as she’s ever looked,” he said. “She’s super motivated and doing everything at a high level. She takes nothing for granted in training and in preparation for games and being a leader. It’s showing in her start to the season in all phases.

“She was lucky enough to be, I think, the only goalkeeper on that (Beadling) team. So, every game she played the full 90 minutes except for one. Those games were important, for sure, but she also was showing up here for training three times a week and constantly looking for ways to get better. Five years in, she still has things she wants to improve on. She has a really professional attitude with everything.”

Neundorfer made eight saves in a tough 2-1 loss at Pitt on Aug. 18.

“Pitt was a really good game,” Neundorfer said. “They are a powerhouse team. I really enjoy playing in those games because I get to play more freely and with less pressure. It speaks to the talent on this team that we came away with the result that we did, even though we didn’t get the win. It also prepared us for our Bowling Green game, and it helped raise our levels. It was a really good test for us.”

Duquesne returned to Rooney Field a week after the Pitt game to face Bowling Green, and Neundorfer and the rest of the Dukes players shined in a 2-0 victory.

The offense produced a goal in each half, more than enough for Neundorfer and the defense. Bowling Green finished with 12 shots, including five on goal.

It was Neundorfer’s 11th shutout of her career.

“I felt really great coming out of that game,” Neundorfer said.

“We scored two really good goals. Margey (Brown) and Mac (Mackenzie Muir) are both on a roll right now. The defense was really pumped about getting our first shutout of the year. It was the first time we played Bowling Green in my college career, so I didn’t know what to expect. We did a lot of film study and things like that. It was a really good result for us heading into the next part of our schedule.”

Neundorfer hopes to add to her shutout total and help get the Dukes another win as they take on Kent State this Sunday (Sept. 8).

Games against St. Francis (Pa.) and Youngstown State lead into the Atlantic-10 opener at Richmond on Sept. 19.

“We’re really looking forward to these upcoming games,” said Neundorfer, who graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in public health and is working in a three-semester course of study for a master’s in leadership.

“The sky’s the limit for this team, and we want to be playing our best soccer heading into the Atlantic-10 games.”

Neundorfer played in all 20 games, making 19 starts, in her junior year. She recorded 93 saves with a .762 save percentage. Her save total ranked third in the A-10, and she was fifth in saves per game (4.65). She tallied eight saves four times with five or more saves in 12 matches.

Neundorfer played a team-high 1,736 minutes, including all 90 in 18 of her 20 appearances. She finished the season with a 7-8-4 record.

Alvine said that in addition to Neundorfer being a rock in goal, she also is a strong mentor to the younger goalkeepers, including Burrell graduate and Dukes sophomore Ali Hughes.

Hughes is battling back from injury and hopes to get back on the field in a couple of months.

“Maddy’s been like another coach, to be honest,” Alvine said.

“She’s a teacher and a mentor. The younger goalkeepers, and everyone on the team, has a tremendous amount of respect for her for what she’s done and what she brings to training every day. She’s like the mother hen for the younger goalkeepers. They take their cues from her. You couldn’t ask for a better role model to show them how to train and how to play and just every aspect of how to be a part of a Division I soccer program.”