In its first seven games, the men’s soccer team found themselves in a severe scoring drought. N.C. State had only seven goals on 111 shots, a shooting percentage of only .063 and was averaging only one goal per game. The Wolfpack’s opponents, on the other hand, averaged 2.4 goals per game in the same time period resulting in a bleak 1-5-1 opening record for the Pack.
“At the beginning we tried, but I guess we didn’t try good enough,” junior midfielder Chrystel Bakong said. “I would say we were kicking the ball, we were taking shots, but we were not thinking good enough to place [them].”
The issues on the team seemed to be endless, ranging from inconsistent lineups due to injury or penalties to a visible lack of communication while on the field. In order to overcome these obstacles, the team began 11 on 11 scrimmages during practice.
“We figure the best thing for us is to just play, because that is what we are going to do in a game,” redshirt junior forward Ronnie Bouemboue said. “We do a little bit of drills in the beginning just to see what we want to do in a game, and then we just let it all go out in a 11 [vs.] 11 game with the whole team. Game situations work very well for us.”
Regardless of the problems the team was facing, the bottom line is it was not scoring, and in turn, not winning games. According to junior forward Federico Nachmann, winning is the ultimate goal for this team.
“We hope to win every match this season,” Nachmann said. “That’s the only goal for us.”
Bouemboue, who is leading the team in both shots and goals, said there is a lot of pressure before taking each shot.
“There is a lot,” Bouemoue said. “For one, you have teammates screaming at you, ‘pass the ball, pass the ball,’ so you have to contend with that. On top of that, you have to worry about the three or four guys in front of you defending. And on top of that, you have to worry about the keeper on the line in this 10 foot little frame and you have to shoot past him. So put all that, and then you trying to get ready for the shot, creating a little bit of space for you to get the shot off. Putting all of that together, in all of that stress, to relax and just take the shot is something that top goal scorers do really well.”
The Pack has really turned it around in their past three games, notching 11 goals on just 25 attempts giving them .44 shooting percentage and 3.67 goals per game in that time period. This flood of goals has resulted in a 2-1-0 record in over this span with the only loss coming due to a disqualification.
Coach George Tarantini said the Pack was able to convert these goals because they were able to get more people in the box.
“What we have tried to do is to bring more people forward,” Tarantini said. “The more people you bring forward, the more chances you have. With Ronnie, we need people to get closer. Federico and Watt [Williams], they are getting closer. The more people we bring in to the penalty area, the more opportunities we are going to have.”
In the end it, all comes down to scoring goals, which is not an exact science. Bouemboue said luck is a big part of whether a shot goes in or not.
“You can have 20, 25 shots and not score, and you can take five shots like we did [against BC] and you get two of them in,” Bouemboue said. “It’s remaining calm and focused in front of the net… but at the end of the day sometimes it is just a little bit of luck. After you take that shot, after you hit it, you don’t know where it’s going to go. It’s practice and a little bit of luck and you’ll be alright.”
