Cailla Prisco
Sports Editor
The Keene State Men’s soccer team is thriving with young talent this season, adding 25 first-years to the roster. The men’s team is now 4-0 in the Little East Conference.
Junior and captain Donovan Harris believes this is going to be a good year for the team “The goal this year is to just make it to the playoffs again, and so far, things have been going well as a team. We are all working together and we have a lot of young players who are just always getting better every game,” said Harris.
The team lost eleven seniors and seasoned players.. “The dynamic of the team was definitely more veteran-heavy last season; they all knew what they had to get done in a game, and we had a lot of leadership roles,” said Harris.
Though the team may be younger, Harris said the first-years are adapting really fast and “maturing quickly.” Along with Harris, the other three captains are Senior Samuel Binogono, Senior Jacob Chiza, and Sophomore Isaiah Lovering.
Some of the more breakout players according to Keene State athletics this season include sophomore Connor Downey, who had two assists during KSC’s game against Worcester State earlier last week. Anthony Pasciuto also received LEC goalkeeper of the week last week. First-year Wesley McIntosh also scored his first three career goals.
Last season, the team made it to the LEC playoffs, but lost after going into overtime and penalty kicks.
Sophomore and captain Isaiah Lovering said that the team is “trying to make it to the playoffs again this season. That is our main focus and priority.”
He continued and said that the team is doing very well and everyone is “finding their confidence and their place on the field.”
Head Coach Rick Scott said that this team is predominately young, but talented.
“It took us about five games to figure out who our top 18 players were. We started out with 39 guys, and we still have 39 guys with the creation of the reserve team,” said Scott. “They work so hard, they do everything we ask them to do and they are very eager to learn — which is the great thing about having a young team. There is so much room for improvement in all aspects,” said Scott.
Scott continued to talk about the rest of the season and how he is looking forward to the future: “I think we are headed in the right direction here. We still have some tough conference games left, but we are cautiously optimistic about everything.”
Keene State has a home game on October 13 against Western Connecticut State University at 1 p.m.
Cailla Prisco can be contacted at
cprisco@kscequinox.com
