Newhouse Finds New Home at ECU

By Joe Corley
ECUPirates.com

Michelle Newhouse stands out from her teammates on the ECU soccer team in a few ways.

For starters, she's the only Pirate from West Virginia. Newhouse also already has earned a college degree, as she's currently a graduate student in physical education and health. She's not the only newcomer to ECU this year, but she's the only newcomer in her final year of eligibility.

She's the only one on the roster who's married.

But perhaps most importantly, she's also the only Pirate who was in attendance at the Division I national championship game last year. In fact, she was a player in the final, the top backup goalkeeper for West Virginia.

Now, through a combination of networking, good fortune and academic opportunity, ECU can lean a little on a type of experience it never has had before. It all started in the summer of 2016 when Newhouse was a summer-league teammate of Caty Butler, a former standout for the Pirates who had graduated three years earlier. Butler, who spent last season as an assistant at St. Bonaventure before being hired back at ECU on Feb. 20 of this year, and Newhouse became friends as Newhouse prepared from what turned out to be her last season at West Virginia.

"Obviously, she didn't know then that she'd have the job (at ECU)," Newhouse said. "But she was interested if I wanted to play anymore if she did get a job somewhere. I told her if she was anywhere south of Morgantown, because I was over the snow, that I would consider it. And she got the job here, so that's how it happened."

Newhouse was in a delicate situation in Morgantown. The native of Pinch, W.Va., had been redshirted her freshman year and then seen spot duty the next two seasons. Last fall in her senior year, the Mountaineers brought in Rylee Foster, a highly touted goalkeeper from Cambridge, Ontario. Foster received the bulk of the starts, but she missed a stretch of games first with an injury and then because of her involvement with the Canadian U-20 team.

Top-ranked West Virginia reached the Final Four for the first time and finished 23-2-2 after losing to USC 3-1 in the final. While Foster was out, Newhouse earned a 9-0-1 record in goal, including a shootout victory over UCLA in the round of 16 as she turned away two shots in the shootout in a game played on a snow- and ice-covered field in Morgantown.

Foster returned for the quarterfinal (2-1 win over Duke), semifinal (2-1 over North Carolina) and final rounds. Newhouse had one more year of eligibility, but she knew Foster would be back. She also knew she had a decision to make. In fact, she'd been wrestling with the decision all season.

"It was my senior year, and I wasn't getting all the minutes I wanted," Newhouse said. "Being a goalie isn't the easiest position, so my body was kind of needing a break. So I figured, what better way to go out than the championship match? It was super-hard. I was really close with our assistant coach who worked with the goalies a lot. I talked with her about it off and on throughout the season, and the staff wanted me to wait until the end to make a final decision. It definitely wasn't the easiest decision to make.

"After the season I told them I wasn't going to come back. I thought I was done playing. I was content being done."

A few months later, things changed. Not long after Butler was hired at ECU in February, she went to head coach Rob Donnenwirth with an intriguing possibility. Newhouse was interested in being a Pirate.

"I remember Caty coming in and telling (assistant coach Brock Duckworth) and I," Donnenwirth said. "I think Brock started giggling. He was pretty excited right off the bat. We were like, we have to move on this. Fortunately, (West Virginia) gave her a release so we could speak to her.

"Our goalkeepers, and I have to give credit to the goalkeepers we have here, they've treated her well. I think (senior Genevieve Ramirez) is playing the best soccer she's ever played, and she's dealing with this positively and supporting Michelle, and that's key. To get someone with that kind of experience is pretty big."

Newhouse said she made the decision in mid-March. At that point, it was just a matter of getting accepted for graduate school at ECU and preparing for life after West Virginia. That included getting married. She and her husband, Dave Knotts, now have been marred for "going on three months" and have adjusted to life in Greenville along with their two cats.

Knotts, who was a classmate of Newhouse at West Virginia, is working a part-time job in Greenville while his wife plays soccer and works on her graduate degree, which she hopes to complete in three semesters or less.

"Everywhere I go, my teammates all accept Dave as he comes along," Newhouse said. "He got a custom shirt that says 'Husband' and has my number on the back, and they all think that's the best thing in the world. They all love to see him at the games. As he meets my teammates more, he loves the team, too."

On the field, she helped as ECU went unbeaten through five games for the first time. Entering a home game at 7 p.m. Thursday against UNC Wilmington in Johnson Stadium, the Pirates are 4-2-1.

"It was a tough situation for her at West Virginia," Donnenwirth said. "I know they had two good goalkeepers, and I think she was seeing that maybe she wasn't the first choice there. I think it was going to be a hard decision for her. I know she made the decision not to play there, but I'm happy she has this opportunity. It's something that probably would've been on her mind the rest of her life if she didn't take it."

On Sept. 4, Newhouse was named Goalkeeper of the Week in the American Athletic Conference after a week in which she didn't surrender a goal as ECU went 1-0-1. She was quick to deflect credit, though. She had a good defense in front of her at West Virginia, and sees similarities here.

"Our defense (at West Virginia) only allowed probably three shots max per game, so I just came through when I was needed and made a couple of saves here and there," Newhouse said. "I didn't have to do too, too much, thankfully, I guess. And it's the same here. We've got good depth, so if one person goes down, the next person to step in is equally as talented and can fill those roles."

Perhaps the roughest part of the transition was an injury Newhouse suffered early in camp. What initially looked to be a sprain in the right wrist turned out to be a fracture. It still isn't completely healed, but Newhouse missed only the opener, a 3-2 overtime victory over Dayton on Aug. 18 in which Ramirez had three saves.

"The hardest thing for Michelle is, she hadn't played a game since last November and really didn't have consistent training," Donnenwirth said. "When she got here she was back into training, but to get into the game mode takes a while. She's still getting there with that, I think, but she has a big presence.

"And she gets married, too, in the meantime. That's just another little thing. She's seen a lot. She's a new player for us, but she's definitely not a freshman, let's put it that way."

Players Mentioned

Michelle Newhouse

Genevieve Ramirez

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