POCATELLO, Idaho- The Bengal soccer team wrapped up their final two exhibition matches on Saturday as they played at Snow College and at BYU.
Head Coach Dustin Downey shared his thoughts on today's doubleheader to wrap up the team's exhibition play, "We challenged ourselves today by playing two games in a day, but it allowed everybody to play and everyone to get minutes, which I believe is a really good experience… They got to play in front of their friends and family, a big crowd, and play against the number 13 ranked team in the country in BYU. So overall just a really good experience for a lot of our younger players to play in this environment and learn from their mistakes, that is why we play these types of opponents, so that we can learn and grow from them.
We were able to score some goals these last three games, which is good to see, I think it was something we were lacking last year. We are starting to figure out who our goals scorers are, who's our dangerous attacking players, and in this game against BYU specifically figuring out defensively who can show up and how we want to adjust our back line.
We have a lot of newcomers on the roster this season, 11 freshman and 3 transfers joining all of our returners, so it is a process. We need to keep reminding ourselves to stay positive. We have seen a lot of good things and I think our younger players will grow and get better. We are ready to get back to the practice field for the next couple of days and piece things together before heading to California to get some wins."
Idaho State makes their 2023 regular season debut on August 17th, playing at UC Davis at 6 p.m. MDT.
