The Wake

The women’s soccer team has two hidden treasures guarding the Minnesota goal—sophomore goalkeeper Lindsey Dare and freshman goalkeeper Chelsey Turner. With the help of these two young superstars, the women’s soccer team started the season with a 6-1-1 record, their best start since 1995.

Turner blocked eight saves against Army at the Brown International on Sept. 8 to mark her first career shutout.

Dare was recently named Big Ten Co-Defensive Player of the week on Sept. 11 after tying a 13-year-old school record with 15 saves against Brown on Sept. 10.

Dare and Turner rank number one and two in saves per game with 9.0 and 6.25 respectively. Dale and Turner also rank number one and two in the conference for save percentage at .931 and .926 respectively. Turner ranks second in goals-against-average at 50 percent while Dare ranks fourth at 64 percent.

The U of M is the only school in the Big Ten with two goalkeepers in the top 10 within every statistical category for goal keepers. To our surprise, the girls offered to talk to us and, despite being feared by soccer players all over the state, were quite nice.

Wake: Lindsey, you were named Big Ten Co-Defensive Player of the week a few weeks ago. How was that being sophomore at a Big Ten School?

Dare: It was pretty cool. My roommates, once they found out about it, went kind of crazy so it was kind of fun. I think I only got it because the other team had a billion shots and I had so many saves. We weren’t doing very well on defense as a team.

Wake: You also broke a U of M record for saves during that game right?

Dare: Yeah! Well, I think I tied the record but that was pretty cool.

Wake: Chelsey, you had your first shutout against Brown this fall?

Turner: Yup.

Wake: So, did you both play soccer in high school?

Turner and Dare: Yeah.

Wake: Did your high school teams ever make it to state?

Dare: [laugh] Oh crap! We were pretty bad. We never went to state. We went to the section championship once and we lost. We weren’t very successful in high school, but they were good, right? (Dare points to Turner.)

Turner: Yeah, we were alright. We went to state my junior and freshman year.

Wake: What brought you to the U of M?

Dare: It ended up coming down to playing soccer at the U of M or going to Winona and playing basketball and soccer. I just decided that the University of Minnesota was a better education and the opportunity to play for a Division 1 sport was something I couldn’t say no to. I didn’t want to be living my life wondering what it would have been like, so I decided to come here and I have loved every second of it.

Turner: Basically, I looked out East a lot. I didn’t really look in the Midwest. Basically it came down to Penn State and here and this just felt a lot more like a family than just playing soccer.

Wake: What has been your most exciting game here at the U so far?

Dare: Probably the first game that I played here, I think it was against Drake. Well, this season anyway. It was exciting to just get out here and play in a game that counted instead of just exhibition games. It was really exciting, I think I had a bunch of saves that game too so it was fun!

Turner: For me it was beating Dartmouth on Friday (Sept. 15). That was huge! With all the fans and under the lights and stuff—that was cool.

Wake: Do you guys ever wish you were out scoring goals instead of saving them?

Dare: I think it would be really fun to be a forward and run around out there—score goals and stuff. I used to play on the field during practice all the time freshman year and it was so fun. I like being able to run around a lot more instead of just chilling back in goal but I love being goalie and wouldn’t change it for the world.

Turner: Um, yeah…well, in high school I used to play on the field a lot but once we got to a higher level on the field I kind of got shut down. (Turner laughs.) I got brought back down to reality pretty quickly.

Wake: So you like being in the goal?

Turner: Yeah, it’s safe.

Wake: So you two share the net. How is that?

Dare: We go game by game and split weekends. Someone will play on Friday and someone will play on Sunday. That’s how we’re doing it right now and it’s awesome, I love it! I love training with this kid (Dare nudges Turner) it’s a lot of fun. Turner’s cool with it too, she told me.

Wake: How does it feel to be a part of this gopher team which started the season with the best record since 1995?

Dare: It feels really good to win and score a lot of goals. The last couple of years we would play really well but we just could not score a goal, now we score all the time…it’s really fun.

Wake: So is the Big Ten pretty competitive this year?

Turner: Yeah, every year it is. Even the last teams in the conference can come back and beat the top teams.

Wake: What kind of goals do you have for the rest of your career with the University of Minnesota soccer team?

Turner: To make an impression on the program and keep it going upward. Just being a part of rebuilding this program and making it a tradition is awesome.

Dare: My freshman year we were absolutely terrible and the year before they were even worse. Being able to be a part of the growth process and Minnesota soccer making a name for ourselves and being good, people knowing your name, it has been really fun. I think it would be really fun to make it to the NCAA tournament, I don’t even care what round we get to, just to go would be amazing for me. I think it would be an incredible experience.