By David Fuhriman
The BYU men’s soccer team, looking to get their first win of the year under its belt, is excited about getting on the field again and working towards another national club championship.
“The guys are excited. They love to come practice, and they come early,” said head soccer coach Chris Watkins of the young squad. “The experience isn’t there yet, but it’s not from a lack of effort. They’re working very hard to get that experience, and it’s coming.”
The Cougars’ enthusiasm comes partly from a rough opening schedule that saw them play top 20 NCAA Division I teams on the road and left the team with an 0-3-1 record and an increased will to win. “The worst part of our schedule is over,” Watkins said.
Despite the slow start, the attitude of the team remains confident. “The team’s upbeat, excited and just ready to go. Anytime we have a game, we get ourselves excited for that,” said Brian Jolley, a senior goalkeeper and co-captain of this year’s team.
Watkins said the team focused especially this week on finishing the scoring opportunities they get. “The guys have really been working hard this week on shooting. We’ve been working on it for the last two hours and all the guys were out here early taking shots. That part of the game will come,” Watkins said.
He added that team defense was also a key point they were working on this week. “I think sometimes we give the opposition a couple feet when they should only have a couple of inches of room. We spent all day Tuesday working on defense and making sure everyone knows who they should be guarding and when,” Watkins said.
This year, however, the team is a little more patient with their improvement. As defending national club champions, the Cougars already have an automatic bid to the national tournament, which takes the pressure off the team on having to win the league to go advance. “We don’t have to win today,” Watkins said. “We have to make sure we’re better come late November. It might cost us a couple losses here and there, but the bottom line is we want to win the national championship, and that’s what we’re working the whole year to do.”
The next team the Cougars play will be National College, an NAIA team that will play at 9 p.m. on Saturday. “We don’t know that much about them,” said Jeremy Humphries, a co-captain and junior midfielder. “Their coach claims to have a really good team, but we’re going out there to win a ball game.”
Watkins expects an exciting and well-played game. “They’ve got a lot of international players, and BYU’s team is well known for its international players. It should be a unique game and a very interesting game to watch,” Watkins said.
