“With a team composed of primarily freshmen, ULM soccer hopes for improvement from the 2012 season when their record was 4-15 overall and 1-9 in Sun Belt Conference play.
Second year head coach, Roberto Mazza, is confident in his freshman class as well as his returning players.
“I think the changes are good right now,” stated Mazza. “These girls are young and they’re really starting to come together.”
He also warned that success might not happen immediately.
“I think everyone’s expectations when you have so many players come in to change a program around are to do well right away,” he said. “It’s going to take some time and have to go through some learning curves still. We have to go through some up and downs and adversity to get better.”
Junior midfielder, Cerene Arsenault, believes that the inexperience of the squad could even serve as an advantage over the opposition.
“We are a very young team but I still think we will do very well,” said Arsenault. “Even though this is very new to them, they’ll still want to play hard against older players and still want to beat them. I think they’ll have something to prove.”
As in any team sport, playing together as a whole proves to be the key to victory time and again.
“I think we’re all playing really well together and if we all work together as a team we’ll get the win,” said sophomore mid fielder and forward, Karlea Fehr.
The non-conference portion of the 2013 schedule features away matches at Southern Methodist University, McNeese State, University of Central Arkansas, Mississippi Valley State, and LSU. Grambling, Nicholls State, Arkansas Pine-Bluff, Southern University, and Northwestern State are just a few teams that will make the trip to Monroe.
Sun Belt conference schedule play welcomes the usual foes with the new additions of Georgia State and Texas State.
“We’re trying to get something out of every game to lead it into conference play,” said Mazza. “We’re looking to make the conference tournament for the first time in school history this year.”
The Warhawks have never reached the Sun Belt Conference tournament. This group is solely focused on doing just that.
