Men’s soccer was shut out in its only exhibition contest of the season, dropping its match 3-0 to South Carolina on Saturday. The Gamecocks fired just five shots-on-goal but connected on three of those attempts. The Wolfpack’s inexperience may have been to blame, as the starting line-up featured only four starters from last season.

“Overall, it was a bad loss, but it gave us an opportunity to see what we really need to work on,” redshirt junior forward Ronnie Bouemboue said. “We have a lot of new faces coming into the program.”

Bouemboue, along with redshirt freshman Kris Byrd, returned to the starting line-up in their first game since missing the entirety of the 2007 season with injuries.

USC took the lead in a hurry, tallying the first goal at the 5:16 mark. The Gamecocks would score again midway through the first half to take the 2-0 lead at halftime. USC added a final exclamation point on its match win by adding its last goal at 49:26.

Bouemboue said N.C. State kept its cool throughout the match despite the lopsided scoreboard.

“We didn’t get rattled even though we let up a goal early,” he said. “We kept our calm and everybody settled down a little bit. That was one positive we can take out if it.”