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KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Avery Peters had suffered several knee injuries while at the University of Michigan and just wanted to have some fun for her last year of soccer.

Abigail Baldridge and Ava Beckett didn’t have the best of experiences at their former schools, and they thought a new team might help them enjoy soccer a lot more.

Western Michigan University women’s soccer head coach Lewis Robinson has found the right transfers over the past four years to blend in with an established team and win with that combination. The Broncos have won three straight Mid-American Conference regular season championships and two straight MAC tournament titles, earning them another NCAA bid.

WMU (16-3-1) will play host Wisconsin (13-5-2) on Friday in an 8 p.m, (EST) start in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

WMU has nine transfers on the current roster with four of them coming in this season. The interesting part is that the transfers which came to Western Michigan don’t want to leave after a year or two.

”I knew some of the girls from summer teams, but it was intimidating coming into a new team and they had so much success and were so close,” Peters, who played four years at Michigan, said. ”What if I don’t fit in?”

”But as soon as I walked into my first practice, it was like ‘Avery, we are so happy to see you.’ I felt the love.”

She’s also felt the back of the net, scoring six goals and getting four assists this season. She and fellow transfer Abby (Werthman) Smothers each have a team high three game-winning goals. Smothers, who is in her third year here after transferring from Madonna,  leads WMU with 10 goals and 25 points.

Added Baldridge, who played one year at Louisville and is now in her fourth season at WMU: ”The ACC is the best conference for women’s soccer, but it’s more individualized. In the MAC, it’s a team sport and every person on the field matters. Everyone here was so welcoming. A lot of us came from programs where we didn’t have the best experience. All of us want to win, but we want to have a good time with each other and bond, too. I never thought about transferring from Western Michigan. Coming here was home.”

Jen Blitchok found a home at Western Michigan after transferring from Indiana, and last season, she ended her college career by being named an All-American.

”High on the list of players I look for are great people, great human beings and great soccer players, but what we really look for are people who want to prove a point, who come in with some fire,” Robinson said. ”If you go through the list of transfers we’ve had, they have that in fire coming in.

”They might have had success at a smaller level and wanted to move up to prove they can do it on this stage. Or they haven’t had the success they had hoped for and want to turn over a new leaf. I love to see we are unique in that we have had great success with people coming in and our best people aren’t looking to leave.

”They come here to get better and be part of a good, positive team culture. I’m proud of that.”

Beckett, who is in her second year at WMU after having played two years at Providence, was also looking for some greener grass on the other side of the fence.

”I wasn’t having fun and that’s part of what soccer is about,” she said. ”So, I went into the transfer portal, but not until the spring which is a little late and a little scary because I didn’t know if I was going to get a team.

”All the teams I contacted said their rosters were full and I was getting really stressed. Thank goodness Western Michigan reached out to me and obviously, I love this place.”

The senior defender, who helped the Broncos shut out Ball State in the MAC tournament semifinals and Bowling Green in the finals, played in all 20 games this season.

”This place feels like a family, like I’ve been here my whole life even though this is just the second season, which is crazy,” Beckett said. 

Western Michigan has shown that a combination of recruited players and transfers can have success together. Smothers may lead WMU in scoring, but four-year senior Drew Martin is second with 22 points. Peters is third, but four-year senior Madi Canada is fourth with eight points. Of the Broncos’ top 11 scorers, five are transfers and six are recruits.

”We’re pretty used to transfers now and our team does a really good job of accepting them,” Mira Pierre-Webster, who has spent her entire five-year college career at Western Michigan, said. ”It doesn’t take long for them to integrate into our team,

”We work really hard to make sure our culture is top notch.”

Peters admits this season has been rather surprising.

”I’m a realist and cautiously optimistic,” she said. ”Beating Michigan early in the season, well, it can’t get any better than that.

”Then scoring my first WMU career goal, and it can’t get better than that. Then winning the regular season, and it was one of the best things ever. Then winning the tournament and I don’t know how it could get any better than that.”

Western Michigan will be out to try and top all of that on Friday.

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