Gillespie, James Selected to All-Decade Team

Annie Gillespie

Kelly James

Former College of Wooster women’s soccer teammates Annie Gillespie (Bay Village, Ohio / Bay) and Kelly James (Cleveland, Ohio / The Hawken School) were named to the North Coast Athletic Conference’s All-Decade Team (1993-2002), announced the league office on Monday. The Wooster alums, both of whom played under current head coach David Brown, took up two spots on the elite 18-member team.

Gillespie, a three-time All-NCAC selection during her career, was one of the Scots’ most prolific scorers in the past decade. From 1994-97, Gillespie compiled 70 points coming on 27 goals and 16 assists, which ranked her No. 3 on the school’s scoring list upon graduation. Gillespie’s best season came as a junior, when she scored 10 times and assisted on four other goals en route to picking up her first of two first-team all-conference nods, and even more impressively, first-team all-region and third-team All-American honors.

James, the only women’s soccer player at Wooster to earn first-team All-American recognition, anchored a stingy Scot backfield that only gave up 61 goals from 1993-96. The four-time All-NCAC honoree, including first-team accolades three years, was able to total 16 career points on six goals and four assists, but it is certainly her defense for which she is revered. James, who was hampered with a knee injury as a junior, finished with her best season, leading a defense that shutout 14 of 21 opponents and yielded just nine scores all year. For her efforts, James was voted 1996’s NCAC Defensive Player of the Year, to go along with first-team honors on the all-conference, all-region, and All-America Teams.

Gillespie and James were the cornerstones of a program that compiled a record of 59-36-2 (.619) from 1993-97, highlighted by the 1996 season, in which Wooster won a still-standing school-record 18 games (18-3), captured the NCAC championship with a flawless 8-0 slate, and made an appearance in the NCAA Division III Tournament for just the second time in school history.

In celebrating the league’s 20th anniversary, the NCAC is releasing a second set of All-Decade Teams for all 22 sports that it sponsors throughout 2003-04. The NCAC previously picked All-Decade Teams for student-athletes from the years of 1984-1993 when honoring its 10th year of operation.