In the second game of her senior season, Mount St. Mary’s women’s soccer defender Kalli Bell received an early test.
First-year Mount head coach Melissa Sherwood asked her co-captain to transition to defense after three years of playing midfield, a function of a deep incoming recruiting class full of attacking players and Bell’s experience playing defense at the club level.
The 21-year-old Baltimore native was admittedly nervous anchoring the defensive line, she said. For Bethesda Soccer Club, she played both outside back and center back. But in high school, Bell mostly played attacking midfielder, helping Sparrows Point High win four straight state titles from 2015-2018.
Facing Robert Morris Aug. 25, the Mount defense was under siege by a barrage of opposing shots. In the 18th minute, sophomore goalie Arden Lembryk made a stop that deflected to a Robert Morris player who had an open net in front of her. The Mount’s entire defense had shifted right toward the action, but Bell instinctively checked her left shoulder and saw the open attacker.
“I looked and I was like, ‘There’s no way,’ and dove and put my whole body in front of it as fast as I could,” she said.
Bell’s teammates erupted around her as their captain sacrificed her body to save a goal. For Bell, the play gave her an injection of confidence as she helped a young team with a new head coach navigate a new league, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. She was a stalwart, leading the Mount in minutes this season (1,380). She scored goals against Fairfield Sept. 28 and Manhattan Oct. 12.
“It is a lot of responsibility, playing defense, especially center back. You don’t want to get scored on. You don’t want to make a mistake. You’re the last man before the goalkeeper,” Bell said. “So, I think a big play like that definitely gave me a ton of confidence to realize, ‘OK, I can do this.'”
Bell’s first three collegiate seasons were spent mostly playing midfield for head coach Tori Krause in the Northeast Conference. Her junior year, in particular, was marked by highly dynamic play that included three goals. She also had eight assists, tied for most on the team with senior Elisabeth Rockhill and good for second all time for assists in a season at the Mount.
Bell has 16 career assists, six shy of the Mount’s all-time career assist record held by Christy Wicks (1994-1997).
In January, Sherwood took over for Krause after four seasons in charge at Saint Peter’s (2016-2019) and stints at South Carolina State (2020) and Northwestern State (2021). She oversaw the Mountaineers’ undefeated five-game spring season, which included rigorous training sessions four times a week. The heavy offseason workload was meant to jumpstart a culture change for a club that finished 5-13 last season and set expectations for this fall and beyond, she said.
Bell, who was coming off an MCL injury at the end of the 2021 season, didn’t play in the spring but helped set the tone as a leader off the field and was ripe for a position change, Sherwood said.
“I knew coming in that Kalli was a strong player,” she said. “I also knew she was playing an attacking midfield role at the Mount and on a very strong club team she was a defender.”
Sherwood, who was familiar with the rigors of the MAAC while coaching Saint Peter’s, asked Bell to move to defense to help anchor a back line that conceded about 20 shots per game on average in 2021.
Bell didn’t blink.
“She can read the game and she can make some very accurate long passes,” Sherwood said. “She’s got probably the best distribution on the team in terms of her range of passes.”
Those pinpoint passes came in handy on corners and free kicks this season. Bell helped solidify the defense, too. The Mountaineers shaved about five shots per game off last year’s average and notched cleansheets against Hampton, UNC Asheville, Canisius, Saint Peter’s and Siena.
While the defense has improved, the team dropped a few tough matches. The Mount finished 3-4-7 overall and 2-5-3 in the MAAC. But Bell’s confidence isn’t shaken. Serving as one of three team captains, she’s trying to lay the groundwork for future Mount teams.
“Being a captain is so fulfilling, but it’s also a big responsibility. And I am willing to take that on,” she said. “It just makes you a better person. I think just showing up every day, remembering like, ‘OK, I need to keep myself on track, but also everyone else.’
“Sometimes, teammates are going through things that you don’t really know all the time. So it’s always important to me to be that voice that says, ‘Look, adversity is here, but we just have to keep going because we all have the same goal to win.'”
While the business major’s college career is winding down, and law school is on the horizon, Bell is taking it one game at a time. Her senior season, she said, is dedicated to her grandfather William Smith, who is battling cancer.
Smith got to watch his granddaughter play Towson Aug. 28. Though the Mount fell short, what mattered more was making her grandfather proud.
“That’s probably been the biggest motivator for me,” Bell said. “Coach Mel can motivate me all she wants, but my biggest motivator this season is trying to do as best I can for my last season.”
This story was updated following the conclusion of Mount St. Mary’s season.
Photo Credit: Tyler E. Kraft
Issue 277: October/November 2022
Originally published Oct. 19, 2022