Hannah Goetzer never used to play soccer with other girls.
Growing up in Backnang, a small town in southwest Germany, the boys’ clubs were just bigger and better organized, offering Goetzer stronger competition. But she was left wanting a genuine connection with her teammates that was lacking with teenage boys.
“In my region, they didn’t have good girls’ teams that played at a higher level,” she said. “I think playing with boys was a great opportunity because they play faster and are stronger. It was a great challenge for me, and I think it really helped me get better and get where I am now.”
Goetzer sought a similar challenge by entering the transfer portal after two years at Division II Saint Leo University, about 33 miles north of Tampa, Fla. When she arrived at Loyola in 2025, she won the starting goalkeeper job from incumbent starter Brigid Mulholland.
Now, as a senior, she hopes to build on a stellar junior season that saw her spend time near the top of the Patriot League and national statistical charts. Her performance will dictate the Greyhounds’ success following a disappointing 2025 season for the team. The Greyhounds finished 5-5-8 overall and 2-2-5 in the Patriot League, allowing just 18 goals but struggling with a lack of offensive firepower.
“As a program, we’re really confident about our goalkeeping tandem and crew right now, and that’s a nice luxury to have,” head coach Joe Mallia said of Goetzer and Mulholland. “At the end of the day, you want to know when you go into games that you have confidence in the players that are in goal, and you know you’re not starting a game down a goal.”
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When Mallia looked at his roster after the 2024 season, he saw both stability and opportunity.
Mulholland had stepped in for the departed Paige Sim, a four-year starter and one of the most decorated keepers in program history. As a sophomore in 2024, Mulholland started every game for an 8-6-5 team that reached the Patriot League semifinals.
The position was in good hands, but Mallia believed it could be even better. So Loyola dipped into the transfer portal and found Goetzer. In two seasons at Saint Leo, she posted a .857 save percentage in 28 starts and earned second-team All-Sunshine State Conference honors as a sophomore. On film, Mallia saw the foundation of a high-level Division I keeper.
“She is a tremendous shot-stopper,” he said. “Her hands are excellent. She holds balls cleanly; she doesn’t give rebounds. And when she can’t hold, she does very well to deflect or parry them into safe spots or out of bounds.”
Goetzer and Mulholland began the season by trading starts through the first eight games before Goetzer won the job outright and finished the final 10 games of the season. She amassed a .808 save percentage with 59 saves in 14 starts.
Goetzer was excellent in her first 10 games in particular, allowing just five goals while recording five shutouts. Her performance flirted with some of the best goalkeeping in all of Division I.
“Honestly, it was an amazing feeling,” Goetzer said of her hot start. “Because I played Division II before and I didn’t even expect to play Division I. And then having these really good stats was like a great feeling and definitely gave me confidence.”
From the outside, competition at such a crucial position like goalkeeper can look ruthless: one player plays, the other sits. Inside Loyola’s locker room, the reality was more nuanced. Goetzer built friendships with her entire team, including Mulholland, who serves as team captain.
“It was definitely difficult to come in and have someone who’s pretty much at the same level and to compete for your starting position because I never really had that before,” Goetzer said. “It was definitely challenging in the beginning.”
While they competed on the field, Goetzer and Mulholland built a supportive friendship off it.
“We just leave everything behind and even on the field we support each other and it’s not really a rivalry between us,” Goetzer said. “We just support each other and whoever is better is going to play. We both know that and accept that, and that’s what I think is pretty cool.”
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If there was a single night when Goetzer proved — to herself as much as anyone — that she belonged at the Division I level, it came in just her second start, on Aug. 24, 2025, against defending Ivy League champion Princeton.
Facing 24 shots, she made eight saves, including a spectacular stop on a Princeton breakaway, and allowed just one goal in a resounding 2-1 victory.
“Princeton was in general a really great game for all of us,” Goetzer said. “And I had this top corner save. Everybody was cheering me on after that. It was a great feeling, and also seeing the highlight video after was kind of amazing.”
A little more than a month later, she topped it.
On Sept. 27 at Boston University, Goetzer finished with a season-high nine saves, six of them in the first half. The other three came in a single defensive sequence early in the second half. With the game still tied, two BU attackers carved through the box for what looked like a certain goal. Goetzer closed down the angle and blocked the initial shot to her left, scrambled back to her line to stop a second effort seconds later, then smothered a third attempt.
“If you go back to those two games, they were some of the better games we’ve seen from a goalkeeper since I got back to Loyola,” said Mallia, who returned to coach the Greyhounds in 2018 after a seven-season stint from 1998-2004.
Despite Goetzer’s consistent play, the Greyhounds stumbled late in the season.
By mid-October, Loyola — then boasting just two losses — had not allowed more than one goal since Aug. 28. But after conceding three goals in a loss to Colgate, the Greyhounds gave up two more to Army and settled for a 1-1 draw against Navy. A rematch with Army in the Patriot League quarterfinals yielded a similar result, a 3-1 drubbing to end Loyola’s season.
More consistency in front of goal could have made a huge difference in the season, Mallia said.
“That is something we’ve really been talking about as a program in the last eight months: what we’re doing in the final third,” the coach said.
And Goetzer knows that her quality play must continue if Loyola hopes to improve on last year’s results.
She gained crucial experience during the Greyhounds’ spring season before returning to Germany for the summer. There she met up with a women’s club team and played in competitive games, a rare instance of playing with players of her own gender in her home country.
Now she’s back in Baltimore. Loyola began preseason work in late July. The team has a highly anticipated rematch at Princeton on Aug. 20.
While she has a good feeling about this season, Goetzer still marvels at the camaraderie she’s built at Loyola.
“I’ve never been on a team where everybody is so close,” she said. “We have really, really good team chemistry here, and that’s something I never really had before. It’s great to be part of this team.”
And for now, that’s enough.
Photo Credit: Larry French
Issue 300: August / September 2026
Originally published Aug. 19, 2026