'We Want to be the Spain of the NCAA': Baylor Soccer Intends to Build on Momentum in 2026

Michelle Lenard doesn’t just want Baylor Soccer to win, she wants her program to play like newly crowned world champions Spain while doing it. 

Baylor Soccer is coming off its best season since 2018 and heads into this fall with plenty of promise. 2026 will be year number five with Lenard at the helm, and sights are set on goals beyond just matching last year’s Sweet 16 appearance and No. 15 finish in the United Soccer Coaches poll. 

Just how high are the Bears of Betty Lou aiming? Big 12 championships, top 10 rankings and Women’s College Cup appearances are all in the crosshairs. But that is not a new development.

Before realizing the potential of last year’s squad with a pair of NCAA tournament wins, Michelle Lenard had stated many times the intent of Baylor Soccer to compete for high rankings, prized recruits and championship trophies with consistency. And Coach Lenard wants to do it all with style.

“We want to be a team that plays, that keeps it, that controls the game. We're not necessarily looking to be that typical — stereotypical — really direct, really physical, really reliant-on-athleticism program that still exists pretty heavily in the NCAA.”

That is not a slight to that type of team. It can be a pragmatic and effective style, but at the highest levels of the game it typically falls short of the more intricate game model that Coach Lenard prefers.

“I think we play an attractive style of soccer. It's fun. These girls are competitive. They're athletic. I think if you come out and you see us play, you'll see that we represent Baylor in a really positive light. I think that fans can see that competitiveness. They see that grit, that determination, but they also see a quality brand of soccer that's fun to watch, and that has … how do I put this … [it] looks like soccer. It doesn't look like a track meet. We work really hard to have a game model and a style of play that's modern and that [is in the vein of] a lot of what you're seeing right now, especially going into the World Cup final. You've got Argentina and Spain, two of the best football-playing countries in the world. Obviously it's why they're in the World Cup final. That's what dominates on the world stage. And so at the NCAA level, we want to be that. We want to be the Spain of NCAA.”

The Bears, like newly crowned world champions Spain, are happy to win 1-0 or 5-4. But both teams take pride in how they get to either result. La Roja gave up a single goal in the 2026 World Cup, and won all but two games in regulation: a 0-0 group stage draw with cinderella Cape Verde and Sunday’s final against Argentina. 

Last year, the Bears kept 12 clean sheets, accounting for 11 of their 14 wins and one of their four draws.

Sometimes it isn’t as clean for Spain, like the barnstorming 5-4 2025 UEFA Nations League semifinal game against France. 

Similarly, last fall Baylor beat BYU 4-2 and just this spring the Bears defeated TCU 4-3 in a hotly contested exhibition game. Both were electric, entertaining wins for the Bears that showed adaptability and grit. Plus it gave the people what they want.

“People want to come and see goals at a soccer game; they don't want to see bunch of zero-zero ties. And so while we don't want to concede goals, our emphasis is going to be on scoring.”

Turning toward the future, how can Michelle Lenard’s Bears become “the Spain of NCAA” moving forward? 

Recruiting is a start, both high school and transfer portal. The Bears must continue to amass talent to foster competition and depth. So far, Coach Lenard has things on the right track. 

Olivia Hess started every game in the midfield for the Bears last year as a freshman and remains one of the most important pieces to this team. Current freshman forward Grace White being called in to the U.S. Women’s U-19 team camp this month is a good sign, and Coach Lenard is excited about the other members of the freshman class too. 

The transfer portal has been even better for Baylor with key multi-year starters like All-Big 12 goalkeeper Azul Alvarez (TCU) and criminally underrated outside back Natalie Vatter (Ole Miss) coming to Waco after starting their careers elsewhere. They are joined this year by seven more transfers, including midfielders Taylor Evans (Duke) and Noelle Sather (USF) as well as defender Bella James (Texas A&M), who I expect will all play significant roles. 

The talent is getting closer to championship level, but talent is not the end-all be-all; otherwise, France would have won the World Cup. Tactical fit, cohesiveness, experience, mentality and many other things factor in.

Recruiting has been a success and source of momentum up to this point, but for Baylor Soccer to become champions like Spain, they have to do more. Among other things, they have to overcome the issue that has plagued Baylor Athletics as a whole for the last decade or so: converting momentum into consistency.

That means returning to the Sweet 16. 

That means making it to the Big 12 Tournament final.

That means finishing in the top four of the Big 12 in the regular season.

So what could hold them back?

Baylor lost five starters from last year’s team and four of them were in defensive positions: Blythe Obar (CB), Hallie Augustyn (CB), Hannah Augustyn (OB/DMF) and Kai Hayes (MF/DMF). 

The other departing starter is 2025 Big 12 Midfielder of the Year Tyler Isgrig.

So the Bears are not only replacing half of their starters, but the majority of their defense and the team’s leading scorer. 

Despite that, Lenard is calm — if not confident — that the squad she has for this fall can play open, aggressive, attacking soccer at a high level.

“We have the players to do it. I don't feel any doubt in my mind that we've at least got options in every position that can give us at any given time a solid 11 that can do it. I think the big questions are going to be can we stay healthy in key positions and [find the right] center back pairing.”

Health is always a question for every team. And while the pairing at the heart of the defense being the No. 1 concern for a team is not great on its own, the lack of questions elsewhere in the squad is impressive. 

Three years ago, after Michelle Lenard’s first season in Waco, my top three questions were the defense, goalkeeper, and scoring. Now goalkeeper is not a question at all. Who steps up with Tyler Isgrig gone is more of a fun look at many talented options than a worry. And the defense has plenty of options and a veteran leader in Natalie Vatter. They just need more experience. 

It is impressive to see just how far the tide has risen from the start of Michelle Lenard’s time at Baylor in late 2021. 

“I think we've made steady progress over four years and we took an even bigger jump last season, which was what I think we had projected,” said Lenard. “We are in a cycle of having just graduated five starters. So this is the first time we've been in the situation that we're in now. We have had the success, we have the foundation, we've continued to add quality incoming freshmen and transfers, and we have to replace some key starters. But we feel really optimistic that we've replaced those players with quality players who are ready to step in and handle those bigger jobs.”

If the Bears truly have the pieces to play their style at a high level, how does 2026 Baylor Soccer maintain momentum and contend for trophies this fall? What does the mentality have to be for Baylor Soccer to take the next step toward being “the Spain of the NCAA”?

What Michelle Lenard has opted for on this front is putting the past in the past.

“Yesterday we spent a lot of time talking about how this is a new season is a blank canvas, right? We had a great year [last year], we were proud of it, but that doesn't get to be in this year's painting. That's our mentality right now. We're still focused on standards. Standard is our team word for the year. And the standard was raised last year, and we don't only want to meet the standard, but we want to continue to elevate the standard.”

Lenard went on to emphasize how it can be a struggle to separate yourself from previous successes. There is satisfaction and joy that should be had, but it also has to be packed away at a certain point because the goals and the wins get filed away too. It has to be time to look ahead and prepare for the next set of challenges.

“When you're coming off a great year, sometimes that kind of lingers. The spring was really cathartic for us because the players left and that was hard. But new players came in and immediately fit right in with the group. And so I think the team understands that. I think they feel really optimistic about the possibilities in front of us.”

With the fun memories of last year put to the side, all that is left for 2026 is the new team and their goals. So when I asked Coach Lenard about how important it was to keep momentum up and make the NCAA Tournament again — whether from a recruiting perspective, a fan perspective, or even from the perspective of Baylor’s new AD — the answer was this: 

“It's just part of our goals every year. I don't think any of that makes it any more of a goal or ambition for us. Like it's just where we want to be every year. We want to be a top 25, really a top 10 team. And if we are, then we're in the NCAA tournament. We want it to be just the standard expectation. And so yeah, it'd be great to impress our new AD, impress our recruits. But ultimately, that's what we've been striving for since we got here, and certainly we want to show that it wasn't a fluke. I don't think anybody believes that it was.”