It is time for the Falcons men’s soccer team to rest, take a deep breath and prepare for the Mid-American Conference season.
On Saturday the games begin to mean more as the team heads to Edwardsville, Illinois to take on the Edwardsville Cougars. The Cougars are at 4-6 for the season but are 3-3 at home, where they will face the Falcons.
“This is a conference game, so it really doesn’t matter what the non-conference record is,” Falcons head coach Eric Nichols said. “Conference games are completely different. They are good at home, particularly because this game is their homecoming, and without a football team there will be a very big crowd.”
Like the Falcons, Edwardsville also played the Michigan State Spartans, and lost by a score of 0-1. Michigan State is the only common opponent between the two teams. Also like the Falcons, Edwardsville heads into this match-up after going on a three-game losing streak followed by a win in their last game.
Conference play is very important as it determines seeding for the conference tournament. Last year the Falcons came into the tournament as the number two seed and fell to Buffalo two to one in overtime.
“[The game last year has had] no effect other than motivating a little more to get back there,” Nichols said.
“The last game was very nerve wracking,” Senior defenseman Alexis Souahy said. “In double overtime, every time there is a shot on net it is scary. It was very nice to win that game before going into the next part of our schedule.”
“Winning game in division one is really hard,” Nichols said. “So any time we win it is reason to get excited, especially when we do it in such a manner.”
Edwardsville has two players up front to look out for in Jorge Gonzalez and Lachlan McLean. Gonzalez, a sophomore forward, has four goals and nine points in 10 games, while McLean, a sophomore forward as well, has four goals and eight points in seven games.
“Their team is similar to ours,” Nichols said. “They are well organized and hard working, and they have quality all over the field.”
The Falcons go into this game with all players healthy. Multiple guys have stepped up their games as the conference schedule has come. The rules for conference season games are all the same as they had been in the previous regular season games.
“We have shown that we can play with the best teams in the country,” Nichols said. “It turns out that the MAC is one of the toughest conferences in the country this season, so now it’s time to deliver.”
