The Lady Bruins soccer team opened preseason play on Thursday night at Alumni Stadium as the team fell to North Greenville University 2-0 in an exhibition. "We set out to use this exhibition game as another practice," Bruins Head Coach Chris Carmichael said. "We had some moments of good play and got a good picture of what we need to work on for the future."
After arriving for preseason training on Monday, the Lady Bruins went right to work with fitness testing and other preparations to ready themselves for the season. Just three days later, the team took the pitch to welcome the Crusaders. The two teams agreed to play three 30-minute periods with the hopes of using this abbreviated format to continue to work on different player combinations and strategy.
In the first period, both teams came out looking to shake off some of the rust of the offseason. The Bruins had good ball movement and control early on thanks to Bailey Martin and Kristyn Rygh helping to control pace and spacing in the midfield. Despite several attempts to attack, the Bruins couldn't seem to penetrate the Crusader defense as NGU did a good job of filling space and taking away opportunities. With just minutes to play in the opening period, the Crusaders would break the scoreless draw as they found an opening and scored to make it 1-0.
As the second period began, the Bruins looked to draw even and get back into the game. Still, the team couldn't find sustained offensive rhythm as their progressions ended in stops by the NGU defense. The Crusaders again took advantage of an unmarked player as they scored on another well-placed shot to increase their lead 2-0 at the end of the second period of play.
In the final frame, the Bruins had several spurts of good offensive play, but the team wasn't able to find the back of the net as they ended the night with a 2-0 loss. "I thought we came out strong and looked great in the opening minutes," Coach Carmichael said. "If we could have sustained that level of effort, we would have been more successful. It was fun to get the season going and I am fully confident that our team will get stronger with each game."
The Lady Bruins will be back in action on Saturday night as they finish their preseason scrimmages with a matchup at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville, Georgia. The team will begin defense of their three-straight NCCAA DII National Championships on August 25 as they open the regular season at home against Brenau University.
