The 2006 version of the men’s soccer team will have two glaring differences from last year’s team when it takes the field Saturday at Method Road Park — no Aaron King and no Jorge Gonzalez.
King, the Wolfpack’s leading scorer from last year, is now playing professionally and Gonzalez, last year’s starting goal keeper, who earned second team All-ACC honors as a senior, has graduated.
But despite having to replace veteran leaders such as King and Gonzalez, coach George Tarantini is optimistic heading into his 21st season as coach at N.C. State.
“We’re going to [be] playing some guys who haven’t played before,” Tarantini said. “But I don’t want to get into that too much because it sounds like excuses and I don’t want to have excuses. We’re excited and ready to get started this weekend. This weekend is huge.”
Senior defender Matthew Lytle echoed Tarantini’s excitement and optimism, but said the team’s inexperience could cause some apprehension among the players.
“Everyone seems to be really focused,” Lytle said. “But there’s going to be some nerves because it’s the first game of the season and we’ve got a lot of young players.”
As far as the opponents for this weekend, Saturday the Pack will play St. Francis and Sunday they will take on Hartford, two relatively unknown teams to State’s players and coaching staff.
“They haven’t played a game, yet, like us,” Tarantini said. “So I don’t know anything about them.”
One thing Tarantini does know is how important these early games are to gauging how the season will go.
“Look at the history of the [ACC],” Tarantini said. “You know what kind of league we play in. So if we cannot get prepared to play in the league by winning these out of conference games then we’ll have a tough season.”
The emphasis on starting the season on a positive note is not lost on the players either.
“It’s very important to win these two games,” senior forward El Hadj Cisse said.
“We’ve got UNC in the fifth game [of the season] and Virginia and Maryland right around that time of the schedule. And right now people are looking at us like we lost five or six starters and how can we win a game. But [this weekend] it’s kind of like sending a message to people to let them know that we are ready to play. Even though we lost our scoring leader and our best goal keeper, we still can win.”
