From Coach Ed Berberich:
The Soccer Aces kicked off their season by traveling to Princeton Wednesday night to take on their old Big 8 rival, losing 1-01. Princeton scored 9 first half goals & added 2 in the 2nd.
The Tigers are a good team, they're well coached & they have an experienced group this year. We're kind of on the far end of the spectrum in terms of experience this season as we have more freshmen than any other class, and most of our upperclassmen are new to the game within the past year or 2. A lot of these guys worked hard all summer and we've improved skill-wise over the past year, but we still have a lot to learn in terms of our positioning & knowing where to be on the field at all times. A team like Princeton is going to be pretty ruthless in taking advantage of that, and being our 1st game, we knew we were going to struggle with those types of things. The learning goes for us coaches as well in terms of who fits best where positionally, especially with so many new players. We have a couple positions that we're pretty sure of but need to figure out the rest, which will take some time & some experimentation.
There's talent on this team, so we'll continue to improve and learn together. We showed some good stuff in pockets during the match but couldn't sustain it consistently or for long. But this result doesn't dampen my enthusiasm for our group at all, it just reinforces the need for some patience. There aren't any shortcuts to gaining the experience needed to compete at the level we want to be at so we'll just have to continue working and taking those steps all season.
The Aces next travel to Olney on Thursday 9/3 to take on Richland County at 6 pm.