New women’s soccer coach posts winning record in first year

By David Elvir

Staff writer

Nathan Harrell is wrapping up his debut season as the head coach of the Trojans’ women’s soccer team, and securing a spot in the postseason.

Coming in from coaching at Emmanuel College, Harrell brings in experience after coaching 14 years combined at all levels. Harrel has six years of experience as a collegiate head coach and six additional years of club and high school coaching experience.

Harrell did not hesitate in pursuing and accepting the position.

“I had a few phone conversations with Mark, (Elliott, athletic director), and I just felt the Lord open up doors easily, that I probably couldn’t open up myself. After speaking with him and knowing his heart, I think it aligned well with what I wanted to do. I think we do have a big upside here, that we can win games and create something really strong,” said Harrell. 

Mark Elliott, the university’s athletic director, was pleased to welcome Harrell as the sixth women’s soccer head coach at Trevecca.

“Finding the right coach is an arduous and time-consuming process, especially when receiving over 100 applicants,” Elliot said. “But the good news is when you find someone who fits the identity and culture of your program, it stands out above the chaos. Nathan and Bess are family-first, relationship-oriented and missional-minded in the Trevecca athletics tradition of Christian-scholar-athlete.”

Trevecca women’s soccer was left expectant after coach Kelsey Fenix left to coach Belmont soccer after a successful tenure, leaving as the all-time winningest coach in program history.  

Coming in after such a successful era in program history, Harrell felt no pressure and got right to work matching Fenix’s record of the most conference wins by a first-year head coach with six.

“No, not any pressure, I know what we are doing can work because I’ve done it before in other places,” Harrell said.

The team did have an uneasy start in his first season as they had to play five games before grabbing their first win with three consecutive losses in his first three games. They were finally able to catch their first win in the fifth game of the season away on Sept. 16 against Thomas Moore University.

“When you are losing, you question a lot of things: ‘Are we doing it the right way? Where are we missing certain things? What can we improve on so this is not the case?’” said Harrell. “But looking at the games, we played against very strong teams, and once we were able to fix those things. I think it helped us come into our game.”

After slowing down from what seemed too much during pre-season with fast-paced practices and honing in on certain techniques, Harrell thinks that was when he saw the biggest change in the team’s performance.

“Once we found that the girls were doing that pretty consistently, they were able to grow and you can see how we started growing as the games went on,” Harrell said.

The Trojans finished the regular season with a 6W-3L-5D record, granting them a postseason spot as the fifth seed in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference.