Both the Georgia State men’s and women’s soccer teams are off to fast starts in what is a promising season for both clubs.
Women
The women’s team has gotten off to a 8-2-3 record to open 2015. The Panthers have four matches until they host the Sun Belt Tournament in Panthersville.
The Panthers are being led by a fully healthy senior Ashley Nagy and emerging superstar junior Suzanne Arafa and freshman sensation Caitlin Ray.
Nagy has four goals and two assists in the first 13 games of the season. Arafa leads the team in goals with six and one assist.
Ray has five goals in 13 games off the bench. Ray has been a great threat off the bench for the Panthers as there is a consistent rotation of players receiving significant playing time.
“Both Ashley and Suzanne have provided a lot of leadership for the team and obviously they are scoring goals. But they aren’t the only ones. We have a group of 10 players that rotate and have been making an impact on attack most notably freshman Caitlin Ray with 5 goals,” head coach Derek Leader said via email.
Coach Leader wants to keep his team grounded and focused heading into the latter stages of the season. Leader knows that the early success is good but the team has bigger goals for 2015.
“Well we don’t speak about any success. The non-conference results were not a big part of our team goals. If you’re talking about the W’s then I’d have to say that it comes down to the hard work of the team and the core values that they set for each other,” Leader said.
The Panthers will look to continue their hot start with a strong finish in the most important games of the season against Sun Belt Conference competition.
“I’m feeling really good about the SBC season but there’s a lot of parity in the league and really anybody can beat anybody right now. It’s up to us to bring our best in every match,” Leader said.
The Panther have South Alabama, Troy, Texas State and Appalachian State and the Sun Belt Conference Tournament remaining on their schedule.
Men
Photo by: Jade Johnson
The men’s soccer team has gotten off to a 5-4 start. The Panthers’ progress is evident after beginning the season losing two of the first three games.
The young team has since jelled and learned from the early mistakes and is quickly gaining valuable experience.
“It’s a good group. It’s been a lot of fun to work with. For the most part it’s a young group. So we certainly have had our ups and downs but so far we’ve had more ups and even the downs are learning experiences that I think the guys are taking close to heart and using in the next time they are in a similar situation,” head coach Brett Surrency said.
The Panthers play lots of young players. They run out about nine to 10 freshman and sophomores on a game-to-game basis.
With young starters like sophomore Rashid Alarape leading the way alongside veteran leaders Eddie Wilding and Cory Plasker, the Panthers have fought their way through the first half of 2015 with their youth and have come out on the other side, where the Sun Belt Conference’s best are waiting for them.
The Panthers are still looking to reach the goal of winning the Sun Belt Conference title.
“I think it’s a goal of ours to be the regular season champs. We’ve obviously beat App State this past weekend and we have NJIT this coming weekend and our goal initially is to win every game we have at home when it comes to Sun Belt stuff and that’ll put us in a really good position for the away games as well and the overall points for the conference standings,” Surrency said.
The Panthers will face Hartwick, Howard and Georgia Southern to close out the Sun Belt regular season schedule before heading to Boone, North Carolina for the Sun Belt Tournament.
