After jumping into the season with three straight games decided by just one goal, the Pack will welcome the Virginia Military Institute Keydets, 0-3-1, into Raleigh for a Wednesday night match. It will be the first game back for N.C. State, 1-2, since losing 1-0 at home to No. 3 North Carolina five days ago.
However, coach Geogre Tarantini did take a way a bit of optimism from the Carolina loss, as he said he thought his team played much better in the second half of the game against UNC. But Tarantini knows his team has already backed itself in a corner with the ACC loss and has to win this game.
“I think the energy from the second half was better, and that’s encouraging,” Tarantini said. “But we need to win. We are 0-1 in the league, now we have to recuperate and get ready for the next game.”
And the team hopes to forget the Tarheel loss and regain focus for the game against the Keydets.
“This is definitely a must win game,” senior defender Tyler Lassiter said. “We have to come out and play like we are in the national championship because this could make or break our season.”
With only two non-conference contests remaining before ACC play, Wednesday night will be one of the few opportunities for an inexperienced State team to try to work on things and get ready for a grueling season of ACC play.
Overall, NC State is 2-0 all-time versus VMI with a 2-0 victory in 2002 and a 3-1 victory in 2008. But the team understands that it cannot look past VMI because it will be gunning for them.
“They are going to come out and just work hard,” Lassiter said. “They are going to want to win the game obviously. Beating an ACC school could make their season.”
The Pack started the season with a win and loss in pair of games at the Duke/Nike Classic in Durham. Both games needed extra time to settle, but the Pack could only win one of them. But despite losing early on in the year to two ranked teams, there is still plenty of reason for optimism for a team that started three freshmen against the Tar Heels.
“The freshman have all come in strong and they are all very good players, so as long as they keep it up they could have a bright future,” Lassiter said.
For VMI, it has been a challenging start to the season, especially on the defensive end. In its first four games the Keydets have given up 13 goals while only knocking home four on the offensive end. But Lassiter and the team understand that they cannot afford to get caught looking ahead to Maryland, as the consequences could be dire.
“Losing to VMI would be awful and if we want to get to the NCAA’s we got to win this game,” Lassiter said. “We all know that and we have all talked about it these past three or four days so everyone knows how important this game is.”