Peter Cuadrado
Last year when UW’s women’s soccer head coach Danny Sanchez announced his resignation, team members were concerned about how that would affect them after training under his leadership. But UW Athletic Director Tom Burman made an announcement in early January 2012 welcoming the team’s new head coach, Peter Cuadrado.
“I am excited to join the Wyoming family,” Cuadrado said. “My wife and I really enjoyed our visit to Laramie. We really liked the people and learning what Laramie had to offer us.”
Cuadrado comes to UW from North Dakota State University with an impressive career record. During his time coaching in North Dakota, he compiled the most wins in the team’s history and also led them to three Summit League championship games. Before coaching at NDSU, Cuadrado worked from 2001 to 2003 as an assistant coach at Illinois State, where he helped lead the team to a Missouri Valley Conference Championship.
Cuadrado also was named the Independent Coach of the Year in 2005 while leading NDSU in the transition from an NCAA Division II team to an NCAA Division I team, according to the UW Athletics Department. During his tenure at NDSU, he coached nine National Soccer Coaches Association of America Academic Award winning teams, 21 CoSIDA Academic All-District student-athletes, eight Academic All-Americans and six NSCAA Scholar All-Central Region Student-Athletes.
When he was asked to be the Cowgirl’s head coach, Cuadrado said he saw an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
“I was very impressed with the players that are in the program already, and I am ready to get to work with them. I think the great thing about joining Wyoming soccer at this time is the program is well established, and I want to continue that. My goal here is to win conference championships and make the NCAA Tournament,” he said.
The Cowgirls welcomed back for their 2012 season 17 letter winners from the 2011 MW Tournament runner-up team. They also have nine of the 11 starters returning from last year’s team and welcomed five newcomers to the squad, including four freshmen and one transfer.
In August, a MW voting panel of the eight league head coaches chose the Cowgirls to place fifth in the 2012 regular season race. Though the Cowgirls have had a hard time pulling out wins lately — their conference record remains 0-5-1 — the team has still had a successful season. Overall, the team holds a record of 7-8-2 during its 2012 fall season, notable given the team is under new coaching.
The team, as well as Cuadrado, hopes for a victory as it concludes its final game of the regular season at 3 p.m. Friday against the Air Force Falcons. The game will be held at the Louis S. Madrid Sports Complex.
