The launch of the regular season is looming for the Quest University Kermodes men's soccer team and head coach Adam Day said he's confident his club will continue to improve each year as the program moves forward.
"What we strive for in this program is to be better than last year and we're quite confident that we have put together a better team than last year and will do better," said Day.
The team finished their exhibition schedule on Sunday (Sept. 5) taking on the U18 team from Burnaby and Day was pleased by the resiliency his squad showed.
"We started off slowly and fell behind 2-0 early on," he said. "But then we scored a late goal to make it 2-1 at half. In the second half, everything went exactly according to our game plan and we managed to tie the game up and eventually won 3-2.
"It was a positive result for our side and a good display of what we think this team is capable of," he added.
"In the past, our team might have buckled under the pressure but we did the opposite against Burnaby."
Day said team captain Ben MacGregor helped steer things in the right direction when the team was facing early adversity.
"His leadership and chatter really helped the boys stay in the game," he said.
The final team roster was handed on Wednesday (Sept. 8) and Day said he likes what he has seen so far from his 18 players.
"We're fairly pleased with the make-up of our team heading into the season," he said.
The Kermodes early schedule sees them on the road for their first three matches and Day spoke on the positives and negatives of playing on the road.
"It's a good bonding opportunity for the boys to travel together but we need to get as many points as possible from our early games," he said.
Up first for the team will be the Vancouver Island University Mariners. The Mariners are expected to be a top team in the British Columbia Colleges' Athletic Association and the team recently scored a surprising 2-1 victory over the University of Victoria Vikes.
Day thinks it should be a good test to start the season.
"They were a tough team to beat last year but I believe that anyone can beat anyone in this division," he said. "As long as we play to our strengths and are competitive we will be fine."
Day added that he spoke to UBC Thunderbirds head coach Mike Mosher about the Mariners and Mosher felt they had a strong team after playing them.
However, Day pointed out that Mosher might have said the same thing to VIU about Quest after the Kermodes played a close game against UBC a few weeks ago.
The games start at 1 p.m. on Saturday (Sept. 11) at Mariner Field in Nanaimo with the women's soccer team kicking things off first, followed by the men who play at 3 p.m.
