State Soccer Starting Strong - StateFans Nation StateFans Nation

While traveling this past weekend I read this thread on SFN’s message forums highlighting some out of conference success of our soccer and volleyball teams. I couldn’t help but think about how nice it is to start experiencing tangible evidence of some of the personnel changes that Debbie Yow has brought to NC State. But, I didn’t have time to post an entry on SFN.

Luckily, the News & Observer gave me reason to bring up the conversation today with this article highlighting the early season success of both the men’s and women’s soccer programs.

Soccer: NC State Men & Women Start Strong

N.C. Stateâ€™s soccer teams are making noise two weeks into the young season. The Wolfpack men (4-0), under second-year head coach Kelly Findley, are off to their best start since 1987 and have earned a No. 23 ranking in the NSCAA poll. The NCSU women (4-2) own a four-game winning streak under fourth-year coach Steve Springthorpe, who led them to their first winning record last season in nine years.

The NCSU men posted a quality effort last weekend by winning the John Rennie Nike Invitational at Duke. The Wolfpack routed Delaware 6-0 and came from behind to knock off Santa Clara 2-1. Junior midfielder Alex Martinez was named the tournament MVP, finishing with two goals and two assists, and was joined on the all-tournament squad by three teammates, midfielder Jonathan Ray, defender Gbenga Makinde and goalkeeper Fabian Otte. Duke (1-2), which lost to Santa Clara 2-1 and beat Delaware 2-1, put senior goalkeeper James Belshaw and junior defender Sebastien Ibeagha on the team.

â€œWe had a lot of guys that could have made it, but the four that were named are well-deserved,â€ Findley said. â€œFabian had a great weekend back in goal, Johnny had some good goals, Alex did everything we thought he could do, and Gbengaâ€™s making some great progress in a new position.â€

Martinez was also named to the College Soccer News national team of the week.

The NCSU women logged impressive road wins at Texas, 1-0, and LSU, 2-1, before returning home to beat The Citadel 5-0 and Elon 3-0. It was the first time the Wolfpack has beaten Texas since 1984 and the first time for back-to-back nonconference road wins since 2000.

7 Responses to State Soccer Starting Strong

tractor57 09/04/2012 at 5:45 PM #

I think these are signs of changes all though the athletics department.
ryebread 09/04/2012 at 7:16 PM #

I was really excited about the Finley hire. It looks like we’re getting a pretty quick return after only one recruiting class.

Also, don’t look, but volleyball is off to a hot start as well. I was really impressed with that coaching hire.
61Packer 09/04/2012 at 10:50 PM #

I attended the Santa Clara game over in Durham this past Sunday. The Wolfpack were clearly the better team, and they played really well, despite being pushed and kicked by a team that picked up 8 yellow cards in their games vs Duke (5) and us.

On an absolutely hot and miserable day outside, the State players kept their cool and are, at least for now, probably our better men’s football team.
GAWolf 09/05/2012 at 6:34 AM #

This is great news. Hopefully the winning attitude continues to infect our entire athletic department.
HPWolf 09/05/2012 at 9:38 AM #

NC States mens soccer is at UNCG Friday night at 8:00 p.m. Its a great stadium for soccer so come out and support the pack if you can. I’ll be there with my youngest to pull for our boys. UNCG has a decent program so it should be a good game.
sockerne1 09/05/2012 at 10:21 AM #

Thanks for posting this Statefans (and Wolfpacker). Just wanted to share this video clip of their game winning goal (overtime) vs Mercer. Pretty impressive.

http://www.gopack.com/allaccess/?media=330321
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCaOC8D1BmI&feature=plcp

Also, one of their captains told me that even though he will be gone…he is really optimistic about how the team should look in the next year or two based on the new recruiting and how good the young guys are. This years team hopes to be good, but there are a few weaknesses at this point.
GAWolf 09/05/2012 at 8:05 PM #

Let’s be honest… the on campus facility should make recruiting HUGELY more successful. Having to bus the guys over to Method Road and that half-ass high school field.

It’s amazing to me Terentini could even field a full team, much less a winning team at times, given how ridiculously terrible that place was for a D1 University of our size.

So this congratulations should be spread across the athletic department for recognizing we were way behind in so many areas of our non-revenue sports.