By CONNOR GRAY, Assistant Editor
Northwestern soccer team members are looking to improve themselves this offseason as they scrimmage some competition.
The Lady Rangers are coming off their best season in a long time. Now the job will be to continue to build on that success with others stepping up.
The Rangers are in their spring season, which is part of the offseason to prepare for next fall. Head coach Alex Piekarski talked about some differences between the spring seasons versus the regular season.
“We have less practice time with our players,” Piekarski said. “We don’t play games, but we are allowed five dates for scrimmages.”
Piekarski also talked about how this part of the year focuses on individual improvement rather than the team as whole, as individual work will pay off when the fall starts coming around.
“It’s really about their growth and development,” Piekarski said. “It’s all about getting them out of their comfort zone.”
He also has moved players to different positions where they are not as familiar. Isabella McMillan, a freshman forward, can attest to this.
“It’s a hard transition to do,” McMillan said. “We have to work on skills that we wouldn’t have to work on.”
McMillan is a left forward, which is a more offensive position. She was moved to left back to cover for an injured player.
She has to work on more defensive skills, which she would not have to worry much about.
The team lost a fair number of players to graduation. When asked about the leadership on the team, Kaitlyn Morphy, a junior defensive back, had this to say:
“I think I’m going to enjoy being a leader for the team, but everyone has a leadership role on the team,” Morphy said. “Everyone always pitches in. Each of us has a role to play on this team.”
All of the teams the Rangers will have scrimmages with are quality opponents. The Rangers will face two schools from Division One, one Division Two opponent and one NAIA school.
The teams for Division One are Tulsa and Oral Roberts, which the team had exhibition games with before the last season started. On the Division Two side, the Rangers will play Emporia State, while their NAIA opponent is Oklahoma Wesleyan.
These scrimmages will help improve the team by playing teams up a division and playing quality teams in the NCAA and NAIA.