Eduardo Miranda

The Daily Independent

The Cerro Coso Athletics Department and Athletic Director John McHenry made the difficult decision to cancel the remainder of the 2025 Coyotes women's soccer season, but not kill the program.

McHenry explained why the decision was taken thusly: "any decision we make to cancel a season isn't taken lightly because of the student-athletes on the other end; that has an impact. We were not intending to cancel the season. However, with low roster numbers and then with injuries in competition, we had no choice really but to cancel the season. What that means is we are eliminating our game schedule, but the program itself will still maintain and operate as usual."

Before the decision to cancel the season was taken, the program played only three games – one at home and two on the road. And knowing that JUCO student-athletes only have two years of eligibility was a huge factor for McHenry to make the decision to cancel the season.

"That was a major part in the decision making to cancel in a timely manner. By canceling at the point of the season that we did, going through the formal process with 3C2A, we were able to preserve eligibility for all the athletes who participated with us. Every single one of our women's soccer players will get one year of eligibility back with the hopes of developing them over this next year and building them into the fall of 2026. They would all roll into essentially freshmen status for year two," he said.

This season may be lost, but the program will return for the fall 2026 season, and McHenry has nothing but confidence in his current coach, who is staying to continue the rebuilding.

He said, "I have full confidence in coach Michelle Hernandez. It's why we brought her in to build the women's program. Unfortunately, our numbers didn't reach the roster capacity that we were hoping for in fall 2025, but it's not due to a lack of effort. She is very actively engaged in recruiting across the state and worldwide. She is building networks, building inroads, and I fully expect to have the full capacity by fall 2026."

McHenry continued the athletics department will continue to support women's soccer, the community, and the local athletes who might wear the Coyotes jersey in the future.

"We have pretty strong community engagements around women's soccer, and we are upholding our obligation to providing quality programming for our women's soccer players who may be from the local areas that hopefully matriculate up and compete with us. As well as, in general, fans who are fans of the program," he said.

The Cerro Coso women's soccer program will return in the Fall 2026 season. Any players interested in the program can reach out to head coach Michelle Hernandez at michelle.hernandez@cerrocoso.edu.