When the Johns Hopkins women's soccer team got new practice shirts in the spring, the gray shirts were emblazoned with the question "Why not us?" on the front. It was an intriguing query for a program that had been to the NCAA Division III quarterfinals in four of the previous five years, but no further.
"I thought that would be something good just to remind them that we're good enough to be there," said coach Leo Weil, who had the idea for the shirts. "Obviously, it takes some work to get there, but it's a simple thing."
That slogan has encapsulated the Blue Jays' approach to the 2014 season, which continues when they meet Williams in a national semifinal Friday at 8:30 p.m. at the Swope Soccer Village in Kansas City, Mo. The championship game is Saturday night.
"It's pretty self-explanatory," senior defender Emily Nagourney said of Hopkins' slogan. "Why can't we get to the Final Four? Why can't we win a national championship? We know we have the capability to do it. We just have to go out there and prove it. So we've been using that all season."
Friday's game will make mark the first appearance in a national semifinal for No. 20 Johns Hopkins (19-3-2), which suffered losses in the Elite Eight in 2012 and 2013.
"Every year, we wanted to do something that had never been done before, and every team's goal was, 'Get to the Final Four,'" senior forward Hannah Kronick said. "Last year, we lost [to Middlebury] in the quarterfinals with 17 seconds left, which was defeating. So to get there this year was really exciting, especially after being so close last year."
So what is different about the current squad? It's hard to say.
Twenty-eight of the 35 players on the roster were around last season, and the 2014 team has scored 24 fewer goals and allowed just as many goals as last year's squad.
What is distinctive is the obstacles the Blue Jays have overcome. They lost sophomore midfielder Meg Van de Loo — who had scored three goals in nine games — to a torn anterior cruciate ligament.
Johns Hopkins dropped three games in the regular season, including its first loss to a Centennial Conference rival since 2012. And for only the second time since 2005, the team fell in the conference tournament final, as Swarthmore won, 5-4, on penalty kicks.
As painful as that defeat was, Kronick said it spurred the players.
"As unfortunate as that was, I think it really motivated our NCAA play," she said. "I think we took that disappointment and that really fueled us through the NCAA playoffs, knowing that we didn't want this season to end and that we were going to do whatever we could to get there because we knew how easily that could be taken away from us. So, although that was an unfortunate circumstance, I think that definitely motivated us for the NCAAs."
Observers have praised Weil's work with what some consider a less talented group compared to previous squads, but Weil doesn't agree with that characterization.
"This is a very resilient group," he said. "We've been through a lot this year, some ups and downs. But throughout that, they've stayed pretty even-keeled. We didn't get too down during the down periods and we didn't get too high when things were going well for us. I think in order to get this far, you need some breaks, and [in the past] we felt like we could never get the breaks when we needed them. I think this year, we were able to get them."
The Blue Jays opened the postseason with convincing victories over Farmingdale State (4-0) and SUNY Geneseo (3-1). They were prohibitive underdogs against No. 6 Carnegie Mellon and No. 9 Thomas More, but they outlasted Carnegie Mellon, 4-3, in penalty kicks and edged Thomas More, 1-0.
If Johns Hopkins can get past No. 5 Williams (20-1-1), either No. 1 Lynchburg (25-0-1) or unranked Illinois Wesleyan (18-6-1) awaits in Saturday's championship final at 6:30 p.m.
"We're definitely so happy for the opportunity [to play in the Final Four], but we're saying it's not enough," Nagourney said. "We don't want to be satisfied with just making it there. We know that we can compete with the other teams there. So being able to have that opportunity to kind of prove that, we're definitely looking to do more. … Our goal is to win the national championship. So we're going to keep working toward that."