By Sadie Shields
As the cold brisk air of Thursday morning hit the soccer field, the Lumberjacks prepared for their final game of the season, a quietness filled the air. Head Women’s Soccer Coach Grant Landy sat in his chair and seemed to soak it all in.
With 30 years of experience, Coach Landy began his career as head coach in 1997 at Concordia University in Portland, OR he came down to Humboldt to take over as head coach in 2020, where he began to rebuild the program following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“First of all, ending on this note today means a lot,” Landy said. “I think the players were playing for a lot of things today, mostly themselves, but I know they were playing a little bit for me, so that feels good.”
Rebuilding the Women’s soccer program at Cal Poly Humboldt was one of the most meaningful parts of Landy’s career. Some of his highlights after six years were the 2023 team reaching the final four of the championship and the 2025 team winning the conference championship and advancing to the national stage.
“When I got here, we had to really just build this program up,” Landy said. “Now we’ve turned into a program that expects to win, and that’s something that I’m really proud of.”
Although the season did not end with a conference tournament appearance, Landy believes the team had a lot to learn from the experience, especially with the young roster coming into this season.
“Small margins in our conference separate a team that’s going to go to a conference tournament and a team that’s not,” Landy said. “We’re going to learn a lot from this season. Our players worked extremely hard and I’m really proud of them. We’re young, so we have a lot of growth coming our way, and that’s exciting.”
For junior communications major Heidie Munoz, Thursday’s game meant more than just ending the season with a victory. The team wanted to come together and give Landy a strong final game.
“Honestly we were playing for each other, and it’s our coach’s last season so we really wanted to win the game to go out with a bang, and we didn’t give up,” Munoz said. “When we got scored on we worked really hard and came together as a team.”
While the season had highs and lows throughout the season, one of Munoz’s favorite memories was the final game on Thursday, Oct 29.
As the clock ticked down in the second half, it seemed the game was going to end as a tie, but Freshman kinesiology student Hayden Anderson was able to get the final goal, winning with her first goal of the season.
“I’ve been working towards a goal for a long time this entire season, and I really just wanted it,” Anderson said. “I wanted to be there for my team and be able to put us a goal up.”
Anderson was initially in shock after scoring, standing still for a brief moment on the field, before she realized what she accomplished. After scoring and celebrating on the field, Anderson ran to the side line and high-fived each teammate, connecting and high-fiving Coach Landy at the very end of the celebratory line.
“I just want to say thank you to Grant for giving me this amazing opportunity and giving me a family with this team,” Anderson said. “He will be missed a lot.”
As Landy prepares to step away from the program he said the next head coach will be decided by the athletics department. While that may be the case, he did express his support to the assistant coaches, Colin and Taylor, hoping they can help maintain the continuity within the program.
“When I took this job, I really didn’t know what I was getting into, and it’s just been so fun developing this program, coaching a bunch of amazing young women,” Landy said. “I’m really proud of what we’ve built.”
Landy ends his head coaching career with 429 wins and 118 losses.
Bio: Sadie is a reporter with an interest in covering and taking photos for sports and science. Reach her at sls331@humboldt.edu.