All these months later, Maya Hansen still remembers how it felt to lose the USL W League championship game last summer. That 2-1 defeat made the Minnesota Aurora a more aggressive team this season, one determined to score as many goals as possible.
Yet Hansen, an Aurora forward, wasn't expecting her team to rack up numbers not often seen in her sport. Heading into Wednesday's home game against the Chicago Dutch Lions, the Aurora have outscored opponents 20-0 while compiling a 4-0 record.
That includes margins of 10-0, 5-0 and 4-0, with the only tight outcome — Sunday's 1-0 victory at Rochester — coming on a day when some starters rested.
The Aurora wasted no time in integrating several new players, quickly becoming a team that augments its dynamic offense with a lockdown defense. They enter Wednesday's game on quite a roll, with that championship-game loss to South Georgia Tormenta FC the only defeat in the franchise's 19-game history.
"We have a little bit of a bitter taste in our mouth,'' said Hansen, who leads the team with six goals. "We're really proud of how we grew last year, but it stunk to end the way we did.
"That put a lot of drive in us and stopped us from being complacent. We're really pushing to get beyond where we were last year.''
The USL W League season is compact, with the Aurora already nearing the halfway point of a 12-game schedule leading toward the playoffs in early July. A strong start is essential to any team with championship hopes, and the Aurora laid the groundwork for that before the first game.
Coach Nicole Lukic carefully vetted new players to ensure they would be an immediate fit. The staff planned off-the-field activities to build team bonds. The result, Hansen said, is a team full of "quality players and quality people'' whose play reflects their closeness.