{"id":412249,"date":"2026-01-16T03:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T03:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/412249\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T03:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T03:01:11","slug":"using-data-science-to-give-willamette-soccer-a-competitive-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/412249\/","title":{"rendered":"Using data science to give Willamette soccer a competitive edge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The men\u2019s Bearcat soccer team had a secret weapon this season, and it wasn\u2019t on the roster. It was a custom-built analytics dashboard that turned every match into actionable data.<\/p>\n

Supported by Assistant Professor of Data Science Kristen Gore<\/a>, the Willamette University Soccer Analytics (WUSA) team created an interactive dashboard that visualizes data from the men\u2019s soccer team<\/a>\u2019s games to help coaches analyze the team\u2019s performance, reveal patterns, and ultimately transform their strategy on the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt changed the way we played,\u201d shares Haydn Duncan BS\/MS\u201926, a center back defender on the men\u2019s soccer team who worked on the project. \u201cAfter showing my coach the analytics and outcomes, he decided to make some changes and we had a standings improvement as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis real world application made me confident in my decision to major in Data Science,\u201d Duncan says.<\/p>\n

The project builds on a similar initiative Gore facilitated for the Bearcats football team, allowing the WUSA to build on their discoveries. The technical challenge for this project was significant: collecting high quality data from game videos then coding an interface using R and the R Shiny package. Duncan worked alongside fellow soccer players and Data Science Dual Degree<\/a> students Dylan Ray BS\/MS\u201926, Ryan Doyle BS\/MS\u201927 to ensure the data captured was what coaches needed to see.<\/p>\n

\"Soccer
\nA screenshot from the interactive dashboard that visualizes data from the men\u2019s soccer team\u2019s games<\/p>\n

\u201cWe created a website format, with clean graphs and buttons that users can interact with, and used a theme that matched the Willamette colors,\u201d said Seira Ramchandani BS\/MS\u201926. \u201cWe wanted to make it useful and visually appealing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gore organized the group\u2019s efforts using the Six Sigma methodology \u2013 a data-driven framework for process improvement used across industries. Students defined the project, met with coaches as clients, measured and analyzed data, tested solutions, and found a way to maintain improvements over time.<\/p>\n

Involving students in work not only with real world applications but direct connections to their lives is part of Gore\u2019s initiative when organizing student projects. \u201cSeeing something tangible is motivating,\u201d says Gore. \u201cI had so many soccer players as students, and I wanted them to see how coding and data science skills applied to their lives and interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Jackson Garro BS\/MS\u201926 who made significant contributions to the development of the interface, the project opened career pathways.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had so many soccer players as students, and I wanted them to see how coding and data science skills applied to their lives and interests.\u201d
\n\u2013 Professor Kristen Gore<\/p>\n

\u201cKnowing that this dashboard could be used in the future and create real value made the work especially meaningful, especially in seeing a project develop from an initial concept into a finished product that can be actively used,\u201d says Garro. \u201cI\u2019m very interested in pursuing a career in the sports industry focused on data analytics and performance analysis, and this project helped me strengthen my ability to translate technical analysis into insights while having to account for the real-world context of the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

This project is an example of what applied learning looks like at Willamette. \u201cCoach Matt Corti-Young and I wanted to use the project to show students what sorts of careers they can prepare for,\u201d adds Gore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The men\u2019s Bearcat soccer team had a secret weapon this season, and it wasn\u2019t on the roster. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-412249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}