It was a promising weekend for Oswego State’s soccer teams as the men and women split an overall record of 2-1-1.
The men’s team bounced back after their loss at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and tied at home versus Ithaca College with their road trip starting at Plattsburgh State. The Lakers tied with their conference rival Cardinals last Friday and stole a game from SUNY Potsdam, another conference opponent. Sophomore Kyle Gehnrich scored the lone goal in the first 3:08 that would give Oswego State the victory.
For this Lakers team, I think this upcoming road trip at Buffalo State and SUNY Fredonia will be a huge test for their team, considering these are another two divisional opponents. All of their regular season opponents will be in the SUNYAC for the remainder of the regular season and they are going to need every opportunity to assert themselves in the standings.
Similarly, the Oswego State women’s soccer team found themselves with another tally in the win category versus SUNY Potsdam last Saturday. With another three games this week, I think their toughest test will come against SUNY Fredonia on Oct. 2. The Blue Devils are two spots ahead of the Lakers in the SUNYAC and were defeated by the Blue Devil’s 1-2 the last time they faced in 2019. With that being said, I believe these will be some crucial games for the Lakers.
The Oswego State field hockey team sits at 6-3 on the season and holds a 1-0 record in the SUNYAC. This Saturday will serve as the Lakers next chance to position themselves as a playoff team in the SUNYAC as they play SUNY New Paltz at home.
The team has had success at home sporting a 3-1 record when playing in front of the collegetown faithful. For a team that went 4-12 in 2019 and sported a 1-5 SUNYAC record, this is a refreshing season that is starting to grow in excitement by the day.
For head coach Heather Moore, this is just a natural step in the development of a team that was young in 2019, now the team is littered with upperclassmen who are playing with confidence.
“For one, we are older, we have 14 upperclassmen and in 2019 they were underclassmen,” Moore said. “It definitely changes things when you have experience on the field, you know how the game operates, I think that is the biggest thing that’s changed is that they have experience.”
A major part of the success this season has been the scoring ability of the offense, which has improved its goals per game by 2.96. So far through nine games the team has netted 45 goals. This is already 12 more goals than the team was able to achieve in 18 games in 2019.
Senior goalkeeper Erica Scheblein has six shutouts on the season, teams just do not score when the Lakers win. She still sees the offense clicking more as an important part of the brickwall defense the first month of the season.
“I think it is not just the defense, the offense and middies have been so much stronger,” Scheblein said. “A problem freshman year is that we were not scoring much especially this year where we are stronger in all positions.”
Scheblein may compliment the players in front of her but Moore still sees Scheblein as a crucial part of the success this season because of the chatter coming from the goalie box and her stellar play.
“Not only does it go back to her, but just our defensive unit as a whole,” Moore said. “All of them are on the same page, working on fixing little fouls early on [in the season], I think Erica does a great job of relaying that and communicating with our defensive unit and midfielders to help them understand they need to come back on defense and protect their feet and get on a girl and things like that.”
The schedule does turn harder for Oswego State over the first two weekends of October as it faces three teams who have combined to start the season 15-10. This is also coming off a narrow 4-3 road loss to Utica College on Sept. 29. Still, the approach is simple for Moore and her team as the calendar turns more and more treacherous.
“I think taking each game as it comes and watching video footage from their previous games and finding out what their tendencies are,” Moore said. “We have a lot of players putting in extra time watching that footage so they can understand their style of play. We can work through what we can do to combat what they are doing.”
The team will continue to talk to each other on the field despite the harder schedule, for Scheblein this is the key to the team’s success. Team chemistry is up from 2019, winning does always help though.
“We are just keeping our communication up,” Scheblein said. “I think our bond this year is much stronger than previous years.”
“We are just keeping our communication up,” Scheblein said. “I think our bond this year is much stronger than previous years.”
Alexis Fragapane | The Oswegonian
