The women’s soccer team earned a historic win on Monday night and will continue its home stand against High Point University when the Pack welcomes the Panthers to Dail Soccer Stadium Friday at 7 p.m.
While the Pack netted seven goals in its last game, offensive opportunities may not come quite as easy Friday. High Point features a defense that has only allowed one goal through two games and saw its best defender, Danniel Rosado, earn Defensive Player of the Week honors for the Big South Conference.
“We’ve got a High Point team coming to our stadium that will be ready to play us,” coach Steve Springthorpe said. “We certainly need to improve on a couple of things, but we should have some confidence going into this game.”
A number of different players have led Springthorpe’s team in its first two games this season. Freshman forward Jennie Krauser scored off a deflected shot from junior midfielder Kristina Argiroff to score the only goal of the first game. In Monday’s win over Coastal Carolina, junior forward Kara Blosser scored once and Argiroff found the back of the net for another two goals.
“We are really starting to get pumped for the season,” Argiroff said. “So we are going to go into the next game a lot more confident and stronger, and hopefully start out a little quicker.”
Monday night, the Pack was able to empty the bench and give all of the healthy players some playing time. They will look to do the same Friday night against the Panthers.
“That’s what your hope is when you get to the point where you score a couple goals and feel like the game is in hand,” Springthorpe said. “A lot of people got goals out of the last game and now we have to put together back-to-back performances.”
The Pack is also seeking another win for Athletics Director Debbie Yow. The last win for the Pack was her first career victory at N.C. State, and with the men’s soccer exhibition game Thursday night, the women’s soccer team can also earn the second varsity win of Yow’s tenure.
“I know it sounds corny, but we really want to win for Debbie Yow,” Blosser said. “It’s something really special to have given her the first win at N.C. State, so of course we want to come out here and contribute and put together another win at home.”
While State knows it will probably not score seven goals every game, it still has a lot of confidence gained from Monday’s 7-0 rout. Argiroff said the players have been focusing on working as a team this week in practice.
“We just have to remember how well we played together and how well we played off the bench,” Argiroff said. “We have to keep that confidence that we can finish, and we have just got to keep moving forward in the next game.”
The Pack will not have much recovery time between games this weekend, as it squares off Sunday against the UNC-Charlotte 49ers in another home match. While the Pack leads the overall series against High Point 7-0-0, it trails UNC-Charlotte 3-2-0 in the all-time series.
