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Think of the Mount St. Mary's women's soccer team's 2-1 loss to host Towson University on Sunday as dust. Pay no mind to the metaphorical debris getting cleared away.

The Mount is undergoing hard-hat level rebuilding. A part of that rebuilding is former Frederick High standout Samantha Roos.

Second-year head coach Tom Gosselin is bringing in his first-ever recruiting class, after going 5-13 in 2007.

"Right now, we're taking baby steps," Gosselin said. "We added 10 new players to the team, so we're working on chemistry and getting in sync. I fully expect to make some noise in the [Northeast Conference]."

Gosselin, a graduate of Mount St. Mary's, is bringing what he calls an "influx of enthusiasm" into the soccer program. But while he has plans to raise the level of success at The Mount, he also wants to keep the school's traditions alive. And to do this, he's looking toward his four seniors.

"They're the backbone," Gosselin said. "We lean on them pretty heavily. They're responsible to mentor all of the new players. They're responsible for a lot of the decisions that we make. We trust them."

Among the four veterans is Roos, a defensive anchor, and Meghan Haspert, a midfielder that made it to the state finals with Glenelg twice.

After transferring in from Stony Brook University in New York, Roos played in 16 games last season, starting in 12.

"She's like our third coach," Gosselin said. "She's very soccer smart. For the most part, she understands the game completely. And it's good to have a set of eyes on the field, because it's a little different looking from the sidelines."

The "third coach" status is something that Roos more or less inherited. Her father, Brad Roos, coached with the Bethesda Soccer Club. And with her final year of competitive soccer ahead of her, Roos is starting to think beyond it.

"Coaching is something I want to do when I'm done playing the game," Roos said. "I like the responsibility."

But the immediate challenge for Roos is to oversee a defense that lost goalie Anna Lebo, a Walkersville graduate who racked up 121 saves last season.

"You can't replace her," Gosselin said. "She's a two-time all-conference goalkeeper, which in the world of goalkeeping is almost unheard of. We're done very well with our incoming girl, [Alicia Miller], in her first game she got conference rookie of the week. But replacing Anna is something we can't do. But finding someone to aspire to that, I think we've done that."

Roos said that while Alicia had big footsteps to follow, the freshman was pretty good.

With just one look at the new recruits, Haspert already knew that her role on the team was going to change. At 5-foot-9, she was the tallest on the roster last year. This year, she doesn't have to be the obvious downfield target.

"Our starting lineup would always be 5-2, 5-3, 5-4, 5-9," Haspert said.

Of the returning players, Haspert leads them with 24 shots on goal. However, with there being such a focus on her from both sides, she was held goal-less last year, after leading the team in 2006.

"She was our biggest player, so she got a lot of head balls on goals from corner kicks," Gosselin said. "I guess she's pretty happy about that, she no longer feels like a freak. We had a lot of shorties last year."

Haspert said that she was moving to more of an offensive mindset this year, thanks to solid outside midfielders flanking her.

"I don't want to jinx anything. But I will say we're definitely better than last year," Haspert said. "When you're on a team that just clicks you just know that you can take it to the next level."

The level they used to be on was dismal. The Mount was outscored 32-13 last year, including a 6-0 loss in its opener against the University of the Pacific. They were also out-shot 293-159.

"The key is to score more goals than the other team," Gosselin said.

"Our offensive numbers last year were not that impressive. They were nowhere near indicative of how good of a team we were. This year, I fully expect our offense to be far more potent."