Forwards Ready to Apply Pressure for Women’s Soccer This Season

The Georgia Gwinnett College women’s soccer team has averaged 3.16 goals per match in winning 11 matches and two conference championships while advancing to the NAIA national tournament during the past two seasons. 

More offensive fireworks are expected as nine players who registered at least four tallies last season return for the Grizzlies this fall. And 21 of those 48 returning goals come from the team’s forwards. 

Head Coach Dr. Mike Giuliano has spent the offseason planning ways to get even more offensive production from the 2026 team, with an emphasis on dominating the final third of the field.

GGCAthletics.com continues the women’s soccer team’s preseason position preview series by examining those players who will be forward candidates in the lineup. The season starts August 22 with a match against Montreat College (North Carolina) at the Grizzly Soccer Complex.

Those plans start with senior forward Gabriela Rosas, who tallied five goals and provided three assists in starting 12 of the 21 matches she stepped onto the pitch last season. The Gainesville, Georgia, native rotated between the defensive and midfield unit during her first two seasons at GGC before playing mostly in the attacking half of the formation in 2025. She had a hat trick and registered seven points in a victory against the University of Mobile (Alabama). 

“Gabriela (Rosas) really helps us when she is a forward because she is just relentless on the field. She might not have the technical or shooting ability of a typical forward, but she just disrupts things,” said Guiliano, who comes into the 2026 season with 498 career coaching victories.

Other offensive contributors should be sophomores Alliyah Rosales and Camila Madriz Figueroa and junior Christy Noble – a trio that collected 12 goals and 13 assists a year ago. 

Rosales found the back of the net twice against Carolina University (North Carolina) in the back half of a freshman campaign that had just two starts among her 21 matches. Noble emerged as an offensive threat after moving from the defensive unit early in 2025, scoring two match-winning goals. Madriz Figueroa was a major offensive asset before sustaining a season-ending injury after seven matches.

Meanwhile, attacking sophomore midfielder Hannah Lorenz led the Grizzlies’ offensive production with 22 points, coming from eight goals and six assists. Five of her tallies were spread across the team’s final four matches of the 2025 season, including a pair in a victory against Bellevue University (Nebraska) for the program’s third straight Continental Athletic Conference title. 

“Hannah (Lorenz) is a special playmaker and Alliyah (Rosales) can add depth to the forwards,” stated Giuliano, who guided GGC to a 10-6-5 record and the program’s ninth postseason appearance in 2025.

Reigning CAC Player of the Year and NAIA third-team All-American Barbora Kadlecova could also see playing time with the forwards, when not in a defender role. The sophomore had four goals and three assists among the team’s 69-goal attack from last year.

Freshmen Andrea Cova and Katherine Maguire are newcomers seeking to make immediate impacts inside the 18-yard box for this year’s team. Katherine is the younger sister of former GGC standout Natalie Maguire, who scored 16 goals across the 2024 and 2025 seasons.