Men’s soccer season off to a slow start

The 2009 season hasn’t started the way the Kwantlen Eagles men’s soccer team had hoped.

Their 0-5 record doesn’t look great, but head coach Richard Goddard said the team has played better than it looks.

“We’re a young team and getting progressively better. The final scores, especially our last game against UNBC, [don’t] dictate the chances we’ve made,” said Goddard.

He said that because this year’s team is young – there are only eight returning players, two of them goalies – some players will make mistakes at the worst times. What needs to happen is getting the players to work through their  learning curve and have them ready to play at any time.

The fact the players come from different leagues is part of it, too. They still have to learn to play together.

The Eagles have lost twice to UNBC and once to Capilano College this season but Goddard said that they haven’t lost to just any team. He’s been impressed with the play of both Capilano, a powerhouse in the university men’s soccer world, and UNBC.

Kwantlen looked to turn things around this weekend in Kelowna, against UBC-Okanagan (UBCO), and in Kamloops, against Thompson Rivers University (TRU).

Goddard, who started coaching the team at the beginning of the season, made changes to the line-up for the trip because of many players returning from injury and thought that these changes would make a difference on the field.

“We’re hoping to have a vast majority of players available who are coming back from injury,” he said, going into the weekend. “I believe we will be better prepared.”

Those changes didn’t make much of a difference. The Eagles lost 4-0 to UBCO Saturday and 3-1 to TRU Sunday.

The Eagles’ next home game is this Saturday, Sept. 26, against the Douglas College Royals at noon at Newton Athletic Park.