Sports Spotlight: Men’s Soccer

By: Bryn Heikes                                                                                                        

For the men’s soccer team at George Fox University (GFU), this unique competitive season has been the perfect opportunity to strengthen the foundation of the relatively young team.

Photo Courtesy: GFU Athletics Twitter https://twitter.com/GFUAthletics/status/1362647074236293121?s=20

“Being a young program, we were able to use this season as a developmental season,” said Head Coach Biniam Afenegus. Forward Jackson Keller added, “I think this year, having the season postponed to the spring has been very beneficial to the freshman allowing them to acclimate to college soccer before they have to hop into some games.”

As a first-year, midfielder Robert Rodarte especially appreciated the extra time to adjust. “Getting to build chemistry with the team [has been nice,] since I am a freshman and still learning new things,” Rodarte said. 

The competitive season is already well underway, giving the team a few opportunities to test out the strength of this foundation. The opening game of the season was against University of Portland, a D1 school. It proved to be a challenging game, and the Bruins fell 0-9. Despite the loss, senior goalkeeper Cole Benton said, “It was just nice to be out there against elite-level players.” 

Two weeks later, the men’s soccer team faced Multnomah University and came away with a decisive win, but lost the next day to Warner Pacific University by a slim margin. However, the players were mostly pleased with how both games turned out. “We really got to see what we had been working on in practice start to pan out, and we started to move towards what we’re trying to do as a team,” Benton said. Rodarte summarized, “I think we have learned a lesson in each of our games so far.”

Looking forward, the goal is to see improvements from last year. “I'm just aiming for us to improve our record this season compared to my previous season and hopefully carry that to perform well in our conference tournament,” Keller said.

Benton has similar goals. “I just want to stay healthy and stay on the field, and take a step forward from where we were last year,” he said. 

“Our players have done a good job adjusting to the ever changing COVID restrictions enforced by school and state,” Afenegus said. “Our players are resilient and tough. That has been our motto this year. Whatever this year throws at us, we will continue to move forward.”