Sam Kuhn
Senior Sports Writer

Over the weekend, both the men’s and women’s soccer team had scrimmages to finalize their preparations for the coming season.

The women’s team had two scrimmages, winning both. They turned in a dominant performance, winning 7-0 against Bluffton and beating Lake Erie College 3-2. They return a very young team.

In fact, their roster does not include a senior. Returning All-Conference honorees Emma Lawrence ’19 and Caroline Dres ’19 look to lead the team this year through their tough in-conference schedule.

Talking about their preseason scrimmages, Dres said, “We moved the ball around well and applied immediate pressure when we lost it which allowed us to keep the ball for the majority of the game. We could probably improve upon movement off the ball, especially in our defense — like having defenders make runs and be outlets for our midfielders when they are under pressure. Meghan Badge ’21 is a first year who has been very collected throughout our scrimmages and is great at turning with the ball in the midfield.”

The Lake Erie coach had this to say about the Scots: “Your team is very disciplined and way more technical than ours. They have a clear plan, which is nice to see.”

We don’t have to look too much into the future here, but the women’s team looks to be a force in the NCAC for years to come.

On the men’s side, they had a tough loss in a close game that was decided 1-0 on a controversial penalty call against Division II Walsh.

Student Assistant Max Clement ’18 said, “The scrimmage against Walsh was a great test for us and I expect a much greater output from this team next weekend. The main difference between this team as opposed to last year’s team is that we possess more of a bite on offense. Already, new players have made a tremendous impact to our team and have adapted well to our system of play. It will be interesting how this season will play out, but make no mistake about it, this team has the opportunity to shake things up in the NCAC.”

The men’s team includes a lot of young talent as well, only having four seniors on the roster. However, those seniors, Bob Beall ’18, Scot Stacho ’18 and Mouhamet Ndiaye ’18, will provide experience and teach lessons to the young guns on the roster. Clement, who is serving a student assistant role this year, will also be a good leader to the young guys.

Beall said regarding the scrimmage, “The new class is really improving the team, and we need to learn how to gel offensively and defensively to really put the pieces together. The energy and attitude was right where we want it.”

It will be interesting to see throughout the year how each team moves forward. The women’s team begins their regular season this afternoon against Bridgewater College (Va.) in Pittsburgh, PA, while the men’s team starts play today at 5 p.m. on Carl Dale Field against Marietta College.