Looking to do better than 6, lots of familiar faces back for Bobcat soccer

Published 12:19 pm Thursday, September 5, 2024

It’s an astonishing number, almost unheard of in today’s collegiate athletics.

Twenty-eight. It may be a record number for the whole nation, not just Georgia College & State University. That’s how many players return from the 2023 women’s soccer season for the fall of 2024.

Jack Marchant is set to begin his third season as the Bobcat soccer coach and his second one with a full offseason to work in training and evaluating. GCSU had two preseason scrimmages with different results, the best one being a win over Anderson University Aug. 28 in Milledgeville. He knew the potential was there for practically seeing the same team that went 8-8-2 (3-5-1 in the Peach Belt Conference) one season ago.

“We added 17 new players to the team last year,” said Marchant. “Now, we’ve only added three. There’s a lot more cohesion. Preseason, when we started two weeks ago, it was a lot of picking up from where we left off in the spring. It’s a lot easier when they all know each other. So the expectations for us this year are even higher.”

Not so much when it comes to the Peach Belt preseason coach’s poll, which came out this week with Georgia College & State University picked to finish in sixth place. Defending tournament champion Columbus State came in at No. 1 and North Georgia, the regular-season champions of 2023, second. Marchant wasn’t surprised by any of that considering the polling is usually based on what happened the year before.

With so many Bobcats back, it’s now a question of how better are they at soccer?

“They’re just older,” said Marchant. “They are thinking a lot clearer. We’ve had the same game plan the last two years, so it’s just perfecting the little details. Now we can focus on more nuances within it. They all understand the system. That’s been the biggest positive.”

The first scrimmage was not a good performance, but Marchant knew they would bounce back. A big strength for the Bobcats the coach sees, again with 28 returners, is depth.

“There are a lot of people who can step up and play,” he said. “I think we may have rotated a little too much last year and didn’t let players get into the flow of things.

“We have 11 seniors, nine juniors. The goal is to be good this year and better next year as we keep building this team. We have a good underclassman group, and they are learning from (the older) group. They are setting the standards.”

The captains are senior midfielder Adriana Duque from Florida who played at Gordon State College, senior midfielder Morgan Amrozowicz who has 51 career games as a Bobcat and junior defender Anna Claire Smith who logged 523 minutes last season.

“All of the senior class, I’m leaning on them a lot,” said Marchant. “That’s what we told them in the preseason meeting. How do you guys want to be remembered? Leave it in a positive manner.”

The Bobcats have graduate student midfielder Grace Phillips who played 722 minutes in 2023 and Taylor Salvaggio, a 5-11 defender and fifth-year senior whose had two season with more than 1,000 minutes.

Chole Markey is a senior defender with more than 1,200 minutes in her first season at GCSU, and she has a twin sister on the team in the midfield, Lily Markey.

A newcomer of note is freshman Savannah Sause, midfielder from Loganville.

“She’s been absolutely superb,” said Marchant. “The sophomore class, my first recruiting class, they are all taking it in stride.”

Another freshman in a key position is Ella Hayes of Watkinsville. She is getting a lot of time at goalkeeper along with the returning sophomore Kassidy Fortin.

Fifteen players scored at least one goal last season. Mia Palumbo and Amanda Dewey returned each having scored four times, and Carter Drake, Amrozowicz, Aralyn Everett and Abbey Eison are back having scored three times each.

“There is just depth across the board,” said Marchant. “We’ve challenged some players. You need to separate yourselves so it makes it impossible for me to not play you.”

The sixth-place prediction just adds to the motivation for the Bobcats.

“They’ve played everybody in conference, home and away,” said Marchant. “They know how difficult it is to go to some places. They know how confident they are when they play at home. You can’t buy experience. That’s what’s taken three years to get to.

“When you sit there in the spring and watch baseball go to super regionals, you look around and go, ‘It can be done.’ We want to go play in a national tournament. There’s no reason why this group can’t.

The Bobcats open the soccer season with two matches in Salisbury, North Carolina, Sept. 6-8. At home on Sept. 11 they face Middle Georgia State, a future Peach Belt opponent.