Norwich men’s soccer team looks to repeat the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) championship and advance further in the NCAA tournament.
“The team needs to come together as one and work really hard to make up for the lack of experience,” according to a team member.
Having brought in 14 freshmen this year, after losing six talented seniors, the team is young and inexperienced at the college level, according to Charles Maxwell, 21, a senior business major from Rochester, N.Y. “We lost three of our top scorers from last year, we’re having a hard time replacing that, but the freshmen are fully capable of beating that with some hard work and dedication.”
Maxwell said the only thing the team is missing is experience. “The talent is there, we just need to put the ball in the net. The freshmen come in playing a different style of play and it just takes time to adjust. Over time they will come into their own.”
Talent isn’t the issue for the team, it’s finding ways to win, said Kyle Dezotell, head men’s soccer coach. “In year’s past we’ve had guys who were used to winning and now we’re just trying to build a team, and we need everyone to know the standard is winning for most.”
Dezotell said at the college level the most important thing is having a winning mentality. “The first 15 minutes of games is just as important as the last 15 minutes, that’s just something we haven’t learned yet.”
With every game just as important as the next, “the freshmen just need to gel with the rest of the team,” Dezotell said. “Realistically we can’t have anymore slip ups if we want to win the regular season.”
It’s tough to follow a team that was so talented and experienced, said Jake Leclaire, 18, freshman, a political science major from Las Vegas, Nev. “The team’s positions didn’t become weaker, just inexperienced, the returners have become stronger and stepped it up from last year.”
“Overall the team has done well; we could have done better in certain situations, but those just have been learning experiences and will peak at the end of the seasons to the best of our ability,” Leclaire said.
With the team’s eye set on repeating the GNAC title, and looking to advance to the NCAAs, the team’s dedication and hard-working mentality is what it comes down to. “You have to work hard for what you want in life, and the freshmen are starting to understand that now,” Maxwell said.