October 18, 2016
By Christopher Sich
The Dominican University men’s soccer team has won *nine straight games and is currently playing some of the best soccer of the season. In the past *nine games the Stars have only given up three goals, and have only given up 11 shots on goals in seven conference games.
“The guys have brought a lot of intensity and have been pressing other teams,” Head Coach Erick Baumann said. “We are playing very well organized right now.
The Stars have made a concerted effort in starting games with high intensity and trying to make it difficult early and often for opponents.
Against the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE), the Stars came out ready play and with a lot of confidence. The Stars jumped on MSOE early and had a 2-0 lead at half. They would go on to beat the Raiders 3-1.
With the team playing well, the Stars are now focused on taking their play to the level.
“We need to be even stronger in our chemistry and leadership, and we need to play with even more intensity and confidence,” Baumann said. “We want to take all of that to the next level.”
Being undefeated in conference has the team’s confidence high, but junior defensemen David Ortega understands that the team still has work to do in order to play to the best of their abilities.
“Yes we are undefeated but we still haven’t reached our ultimate goals as a team, being regular season champions and conference tournament champions,” Ortega said. “Our team’s confidence is high but in our last couple games we have not been played as well as we know we can, we still need work to get where we want to be.”
A big bonus for the team this season that can be attributed to their success has been their health.
“Having a healthy team has been a big bonus for the team; teams always have injuries and we hope to remain healthy as the season continues,” Ortega said. “During season the body goes through a lot and it is very important to rest and do the correct things to ensure one’s body is fit to play.”
Baumann added, “This season has been one of the healthiest that I can remember for a long time.”
With the team playing at a high level, and playing well offensively and defensively, they now rely on each other to stay focused.
Ortega said: “The team relies on one another to stay focused and playing at high level game in and game out, we support and push each other to play at the best of our abilities. Every player has their ups and downs, but it is up to each player to keep one another’s head up and seeking to be better tomorrow.”
Maintaining focused on playing at a high level is not an easy task, but the Stars are focused on the present and are going on a day-by-day basis looking to improve and to ultimately reach their peaking point by the time the conference tournament comes around.
“We are going to go game-by-game,” Baumann said. “Going into each game our record is 0-0, and after each game we want to be 1-0.”
**2-3 sentences on today’s match against CUW.
The Stars next match is at 3 p.m. on Oct. 18th, at West Campus Field, against non-conference opponent Lake Forest College Foresters.
sichchri@my.dom.edu