Pacific Index

Boxer soccer gets their season underway

   Pacific men’s soccer played their first game of the season last Friday, and their second last Sunday. Both games against non-league teams, and unfortunately the Boxers dropped both by one goal, losing to Bushnell 0-1, and then losing to Evergreen State College 1-2. Despite the losses, this year marks a new era of Boxer soccer, one that sees the Boxers shaping a new identity for themselves as a team, which might help explain the slow start.

   According to senior captain Nico Lomanto, there’s a lot more unity in and around the club than the year before. “I think the team is just a lot closer and more coherent now,” he proclaimed. Lomanto attributes this newfound connection to the change in playstyle compared to the team last year. “They had a very distinct playstyle that didn’t really mix with a lot of the guys on the team now,” he said. “I think we’re more of a technical team than a physical, strong, beat through it kind of a team, so we’re finally starting to play that way.” Since the Boxers have played in a more physically dominant playstyle for a long time, learning a new playstyle definitely takes time, but the Boxers are getting closer to where they want to be, and closer as a team in the process.

   A big part of this season for Lomanto is stepping into his new role as a captain of the team. “You’ve gotta focus on being your best self every single practice, every single game.” As one of the captains, holding yourself and your teammates accountable, and not going “under the radar” after a bad game is something that Lomanto feels more pressure about this year.

   For Lomanto, the main goal for this year is to make the conference tournament. Only the top four schools from the Northwest conference qualify, and there’s stiff competition offered up from a lot of the schools in the conference. 

   Pacific hopes to use more diversified attack strategies this season to catch their opponents off balance and create more chances than they had the year prior. The Boxers will have to sharpen up their connections between lines if they want to execute at the maximum level this season. “There’s kind of like a disconnect between lines,” said Lomanto. “Our midfield isn’t connected to our back line, our back line isn’t connected to our forward line, our midfield line isn’t connected to our forward line, and we’re struggling to build out of the back right now.” If the Boxers want to be competitive in conference, this is an issue that they’ll have to work out hastily.

   Despite these issues, a number of players have looked very impressive throughout the early stages of the season. Although he gave credit to everyone, Lomanto specifically highlighted freshmen Max Bowman and Parker Scheidegger. He also gave a shout out to sophomore Afsheen Alijani. “He’s really blossoming into a role where we can see him as an attacker, as a wing back, and he’s picking up a lot of the slack”.

   Lomanto and the Boxers want to have no regrets at the end of the season, and give everything they have out on the field, and they’ll have a perfect chance to do just that when they face Lewis & Clark on Friday, September 11 in Portland. Then Pacific finally plays in front of a home crowd on Sunday, September 13 where they host Willamette.