No one has been busier than Johanna Rathke so far this season in Canada West women’s soccer.
The first-year master’s student from Germany has made an astounding 78-saves for the UNBC Timberwolves through the first six games of the regular season – 47 more than Lethbridge’s Kate Prince who is second.
Rathke is enjoying life in Canada as well as the added recognition from fellow students.
“Everyone next to the field, it is kind of wild people recognize my teammates and myself. They speak to us on the campus like we played a good game on the weekend, and it was kind of nice to see some much appreciation for our university.”
The 22-year-old, who grew up playing the game as a striker, before making the switch to the goal was weighing her post-secondary playing options in Canada and the United States after playing in a semi-pro league in her home country.
“I never played as a goalkeeper on a youth team, I was always a striker because we played on small goals and I didn’t like that. I only played goal on selection teams. I moved back to the goal because I feel like you have more opportunities in a game because everyone wants to come to you.
Rathke admitted due to the hostile political climate south of the border, which includes Donald Trump as president and now the assassination of conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk, coming north was the much safer choice.
“We don’t have university soccer back at home, so I really enjoy that I have better opportunities to combine both because the professors are Ok if you miss a class or your coach is alright with you missing a training session if I have a lab.”
“I feel like Canada is really close to the European style too and I really like that everything seems more professional than in Germany. There is much more money behind stuff and for me back home, I was playing for a third league team, which was the first non-professional league (semi-pro). We didn’t have a lot of money; the players didn’t get paid but we had long distances to travel along with our studies. Nobody cared about work-life balance.”
UNBC has had a strong line of goalkeepers come through its women’s program in recent years such as Brooke Molby and Britt Hinsche.
However, it was Jordan Hall who got the ball rolling once the Timberwolves made the move to U-SPORTS.
She faced an even busier workload from opposing teams turning aside a record 438 saves in her career. This included a heroic 21-save performance against Mount Royal back in 2012.
The Canada West record for saves by a women’s goalkeeper in one season is 148 with Rathke halfway there through six games.
As for Rathke’s idols in between the pipes, the 22-year-old looks to a national hero for inspiration.
“Ann-Katrin Berger because she is a crazy-good goalkeeper and she did really good in the Olympic games, but I also feel there are some other women goalkeepers coming up in the world. Hannah Hampton for England played an amazing European Championship and she is really young and has crazy distribution. She is the person I look up to I would say.”
“I feel in women’s soccer everything is about positioning. A lot of times I will watch men’s soccer because the goalkeepers there don’t have that clean technique or positioning because they are often taller and can deal with mistakes because they can get to balls we can’t when we position wrong.”
As for her academics, Rathke noted the way the Biochemistry program is delivered suits her learning style a lot better.
“On one side, the academic side, we have different models of master’s programs in Germany, where here it is more research-based. Back in Germany, you have a two-year master’s program, but we only spend six months for our thesis and here it is more about the research in the lab.”
The Timberwolves (0-6) host UBC Okanagan (1-2-1) tonight at 5:30 from Masich Place Stadium.
Despite losing a pair at home against the two-time defending national champions from UBC 5-0 and 3-0 last weekend, Rathke is confident they can take the positives including a scoreless first half against the Thunderbirds as momentum into tonight’s match with the Heat.
“That is a win for us at this moment because I feel like even though we didn’t get any points out of the game, the team did really well to improve from the last games before. We had shots on their goal, and we made them struggle and made a big step.”
On the men’s side, UNBC (3-2-1) welcomes Saskatchewan (0-3-1) at 8pm.
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