The men’s soccer team is going to have quite a different look than the team that led the Pack to the ACC championship game last season. This year’s squad will hit the field without several familiar faces from a year ago, including keeper Chris Widman, midfielders Kris Byrd and Alan Sanchez and leading scorer Ronnie Bouemboue. In addition to those players, State also loses two more starters and five reserves from a year ago.
Of the 37 goals the Wolfpack scored in 2009, players no longer with the Pack accounted for 25 of them. With many of last year’s top scorers having graduated, senior defender Chris Carpenter said it will be especially important that the returning players step up early in the season to show their younger teammates how it’s done.
“We are going to have a lot of younger guys that are going to have to step it up for sure,” Carpenter said. ”They are here to help fill the void of the guys who left”.
Though it must replace several key pieces from last year’s team, its not as though the Pack will be without any experience, as it will return four starters from the No. 15 overall seed in last year’s NCAA Tournament. Seniors Chris Zuerner, Tyler Lassiter and Lucas Carpenter are prepared to play prominent roles this season.
Carpenter said that last season’s success wasn’t due solely to the play of the team’s seniors.
” I don’t see us dropping off at all from last season,”Carpenter said. “The standard is set from last year. We can’t just have a season like last year’s once every four years”
Besides replacing the offensive firepower from last season, the team also faces the task of finding a successor to a departed veteran goalie in Widman. Widman was a wall between the posts who tallied 67 saves in 2009 for an average of less than one goal allowed per game.
Carpenter said Widman’s replacement remains unclear.
“We have four guys competing for the job,” Carpenter said. “Preseason isnt quite over yet”.
Whoever ends up starting can have some confidence knowing he will have two senior defenders in Carpenter and Lassiter in front of him.
Despite the team’s relative youth, the returning starters are determined to make sure the 2010 season is more than a rebuilding year. The competition will heat up quick, as nearby powerhouse UNC-Chapel Hill comes to town Sept. 10 to open conference play. But regardless of his team’s inexperience at certain positions, Carpenter said he and his teammates will remain confident.
“Just because we are young doesn’t mean that we don’t know how to run things,” Carpenter said. “We have our traditions with the same goal and determination that we had last year, win”.
