The men’s soccer team began their season losing five of their first seven games, although the Knights currently are 2-2 in conference play.
Despite the start, head coach Carl Christian believed the games were lost because of minor mistakes.
“We’ve been doing things relatively well, but soccer is a game of mistakes, in a sense, where one or two mistakes can cost you the whole game,” Coach Christian said.
For soccer players, the sport requires a lot of dedication. There are 17 days of preseason preparation and the season is two months of the academic year. The Division 2 program stresses the importance of good academic standing as well as sports. The team consists not only of great players, but also great students.
“For two years in a row now, they received an academic award by the National Coaches Association for a combined team GPA above 3.0,” Christian said. “We just want to be able to combine that with success on the field.”
Christian also coaches the women’s soccer team and believed, by coaching both teams, it is more than just the performance on the field.
“I’ve been in the women’s program twice as long, we’ve built a good foundation, good tradition. We’ve had success as a program and we’ve developed an identity,” Christian said.
Junior James Brostowski, goalkeeper for the team, anticipated the Oct. 3 matchup against Saint Thomas Aquinas.
“We’ve been playing well as a team and we are feeling confident about our schedule as we have a string of really important away games. Being that we’re going to play on a turf field on [Oct. 3], we have been working on a lot of combination play and trying to advance the ball up the field with shorter passes,” Brostowski said.
The Knights defeated Saint Thomas Aquinas 4-1. Freshman Andras Breuer and junior Brain Belfont led the way with a goal and assist, respectively.
Seven of the next nine games are on the road for the Knights. The team hopes to improve on all aspects of their game.
“It’s not just playing good soccer, but finding a way to win games. It happens at every level, you look at the top teams that spend millions of dollars to go out and get the best players and it doesn’t necessarily translate to winning,” Christian said.
