NC State players past and present came together Wednesday night at Dail soccer field for the men’s soccer alumni game, which allowed the current crop of Wolfpack players to test themselves against former stars.

Despite its status as an exhibition, the contest looked anything but, as neither team took a foot off the gas pedal during the course of the three 30-minute periods. The current Pack team eventually dominated the scoreline 5-0 with a flurry of late goals.

Various former NC State stars made an appearance at the event, including former midfielder and current Carolina Railhawks player Nazmi Albadawi and 1988 All-American and former US National Team member Henry Gutierrez.

“It’s great to have the guys back,” head coach Kelly Findley said. “It’s great to have good relationships with those guys. They support us and want to see Wolfpack soccer grow and get better.”

During the spring offseason, collegiate Division I teams are limited in the amount of exhibition games they can schedule, so any chance to get field time is invaluable.

“In the spring we only get five games, and this doesn’t count towards one of them,” sophomore midfielder Yanni Hachem said. “It’s good to get 90 minutes in, play 11 vs. 11 and work on the things we’ve been working on in practice.”

The Wolfpack consistently demonstrated a number of newfound wrinkles to its play in 2015. A more flexible and fluid group of midfielders dominated possession for State and created a number of chances.

Sophomore left midfielder Michael Hinkson got the Pack on the board late in the second period, expertly bringing down a cross-field pass from freshman midfielder Ben Locke and slamming the ball into the far side netting.

The Pack would score a trio of goals in the third period of play, with standout freshman midfielder Zach Knudson grabbing a brace and Hachem and freshman Ryan Peterson sealing the deal late in the match.

The scoreline, however, hardly mattered. The contest allowed Findley and his players to get a 90-minute look at themselves, as planning and preparation for the fall season is a full-year undertaking.

“We just want to play 11v11,” Findley said. “We only have 16 guys training, so you can never play 11v11. You never get to run for 90 minutes on the big field working on your shape, so really experienced guys who love the program coming back and giving us an 11v11 game is perfect for us.”

While the match provided the current team with a chance to demonstrate what’s been worked on so far in practice in a game setting, it also provided past players an opportunity to retread the grass upon which they made a name for themselves.

For Nick Surkamp, who graduated in 2014 and is pursuing coaching in and around the Washington D.C. area, the night was something surreal.

“It’s definitely weird sitting on that bench on the opposite side of the field that I’ve been sitting on for the last few years,” Surkamp said. “It’s an adventure. It’s cool to see the team growing, the team getting better and the team looking younger than what I remember. But it’s always like that. It’s just fun to get a run-around with guys that are in it training every single day and just to be a part of the program again.”

The NC State soccer community is a tightly knit group, and many former players have stayed local, either coaching for local clubs or playing for teams in the area.

For Nazmi Albadawi, who went from Pack standout in 2013 to a starter for local North American Soccer League side Carolina Railhawks during his rookie season last year, the program at NC State remains like family.

“It’s awesome,” Albadawi said. “I view a lot of [State players] like my younger brothers. They were here when I was a senior, some of them even when I was a junior. Even the younger guys that come in, I still come back all the time and say hi to the coaching staff and still see them all the time — they can’t get rid of me yet.”

At the game’s conclusion, the players gathered together at midfield to honor the lives of Deah Barakat, his wife Yusor Abu-Salha and her sister Razan Abu-Salha, the three students killed in Chapel Hill in February, who were friends of Albadawi.