It’s not often a university athlete helps shape an athletic program but when you say the name Madison Emmond, the intangibles like team-first approach and dedication to the soccer pitch launched a blueprint for the UNBC Timberwolves women’s soccer team.
Emmond’s mark on the program led her to become the next choice for the Timberwolves Wall of Honour.
The Prince George product came up through the PG Youth Soccer Association, becoming the 2014 PGYSA Soccer Girl of the Year.
Shortly after, former Timberwolves bench boss Andy Cameron, recruited Emmond to join a team that won a single game over the previous two seasons in the Canada West.
The Kelly Road Secondary School graduate started nine games in her freshman season.
Despite UNBC being near the bottom of the standings, Emmond’s commitment and work ethic were on full display.
How she admits there were some eye-opening moments early on.
“I remember my first game I was exhausted not from just running but it felt like physically I was fighting off people for the entire game. I will never forget walking into the weight room during one of our workouts and seeing Franco (Kouagnia) and the biggest weights we had were 120 pounds.”
“I thought oh my god that is a lot and I have some work to do.”
The Timberwolves experienced more growing pains during her second year, but Emmond increased her assertiveness and on-ball play.
This led to an increase in minutes, shots, and points, as the T-Wolves continued to invest in their young nucleus of players, which included Emmond, Kylie Erb and Julia Babicz among others.
“Experience was a really big factor in that and I had been training with the team before my first year but there is nothing like a game situation to really push yourself to get better and the girls around me were pushing me every single practice so that was huge,” said Emmond.
In February of 2016, Neil Sedgwick came abroad as UNBC’s new head coach bringing a new style of play along with a change in attitude.
Emmond quickly became a building block towards the team’s future success.
“I was very fortunate to click well with Neil and it felt like I developed a personal relationship with him quite fast and he gained a lot of our trust too so we could buy into his process and that was going to bring us to the next level.”
“The practices were very different as he took it all the way back to the basics and we started learning to run with passing or kick a ball and to progress on that over the next couple years was one of our biggest jumps as a team.”
Everything clicked for Emmond in the 2017-2018 season setting the Timberwolves up for a historic year.
UNBC set new program records for wins, points, goals for, goals against, and qualified for the Canada West for the first time in program history with Emmond starting every game.
“When you make the playoffs for the first time you are just so into it that you are not thinking about the program’s future as much but looking back on it now that was a huge step for us as it gave us the confidence and the motivation to tell ourselves that we could do it.”
In her final season, Emmond saved the best for last setting new program marks for goals for, goals against, wins, and points.
“Both Kylie (Erb) and I said we really wanted to enjoy our last year by having as much fun as we could and to make the most of it. I think our mindset with the confidence that we could accomplish what we did the year before, going in with a positive mindset while working as hard as we could is what set us up for the next level.”
The T-Wolves qualified for their second consecutive Canada West playoffs, and beat the Manitoba Bisons in penalty kicks to earn the program’s first conference playoff win, led by Emmond who rippled the onion bag during penalty kicks.
“I remember being really tired after that game because we had gone to overtime and then we went into a shootout. I remember Neil telling us that it was one of the first shootouts we had ever had.”
“Brooke (Molby) was in net and she saved a couple really good ones with one of them hitting the crossbar and all of my teammates ended up doing really well getting the balls in the net and it was all a blur.”
The Kelly Road graduate also had the pleasure of sharing the field with her younger sister Hannah for a pair of seasons, prior to graduating.
“It’s really cool actually. I remember we had talked about when Hannah was in the process of picking a team and it was pretty cool when she decided to come to UNBC and we definitely were a bit harder on each other but we got better together.”
“I think when we look back on it in about 20 years it will be a really special moment that we can look back on and be thankful we had the opportunity to do that,” mentioned Emmond.
Emmond concluded her Timberwolves career top five in goals, assists, points, shots, and minutes, while ranking first all-time in games.
Her 67 games were top 20 in the history of the Canada West conference.
After her playing days, Emmond joined the UNBC coaching staff.
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