The Utah Royals only won six games in Head Coach Jimmy Coenraet’s first full season.
Entering year two, he and the team are determined to set the tone early and bring back a winning mentality.
“We had two seasons where the start of our season wasn’t great,” he said. “We want to translate that into a great start to this season.”
Of the Royals six wins in 2025, only one came in the first half of the season. A slow start Goalkeeper Mandy McGlynn knows can’t happen again.
“With the goal of being in the playoffs, it has to start soon,” she said. “It can’t start later. We saw last year; we did have a playoff push, but we were too far away by that point. Having that mentality from day one and it has already started.”
It started with a culture shift.
“We’re going through every core value and how we’re going to action them on and off the field,” McGlynn said. “Nothing goes unseen. It has been really cool to work in every area of our game but also as people.”
So what are those core values?
“Unstoppable by design is one of them,” McGlynn said. “Owning it and taking responsibility. A big one we’re working on instilling in all of us is that you belong here. I think it’s creating of family and trust. I think it’s going to show on the field.”
“To have that belonging and to have that on the field shows where players can just play freely and be themselves,” Forward Paige Cronin said. “It’s a locker room, a place I want to play at. That we cultivate that here is cool.”
“When we made our style of play and looked at who we wanted to be we also took the state of Utah into account,” Coenraets said. “We are adventurous, we want to do something different, we want to be brave, and I think that’s what the people of Utah stand for.”
The Royals open their season March 14 at the Kansas City Current at 2 p.m.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source kjzz.com ’
