LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Opening the regular season is always exciting, but the Bellarmine University women's soccer team's first match of 2017 is particularly enticing.
At 7:30 p.m. (ET) Saturday at Owsley B. Frazier Stadium, Bellarmine will make its season debut against No. 2 Grand Valley State, which is a national powerhouse and perhaps among the top athletic teams in all of college sports.
Grand Valley State was the national runner-up last season after winning DII NCAA Tournament titles the previous three years. The Lakers also won national championships in 2009 and 2010. They've appeared in seven of the last eight NCAA Tournament finals.
"Grand Valley has obviously been the benchmark within our region and on a national scale for close to a decade," Bellarmine Coach
Chris Tinius said.
Bellarmine was originally supposed to open the season by hosting Kentucky Wesleyan on Friday. However, the match with the Panthers has been postponed due to a forecast that calls for heavy rain.
Grand Valley State went 23-2-1 last season. Forward Gabriella Mencotti, the reigning D2CCA Player of the Year, is back for her senior season after amassing 29 goals and 13 assists last year. All-American defender Shannon Quinn also returns. The Lakers graduated four additional players who earned All-America honors last season.
"They will have many new names and faces as they said goodbye to some great players that graduated, but they will just be reloading," Tinius said. "Their new players are all very talented, and they have plenty of veterans and coaches that have succeeded at the highest level to bring them into the mix. We expect Grand Valley to continue with their aggressive attacking mentality and bring the game right at us. We have to be ready to withstand some pressure and then be confident enough to take our chances too."
Tinius said his squad has made strides leading into its debut. The Knights captured a 1-0 victory over Centre in an exhibition, with junior midfielder
Audrey Van Der Elst sinking a free kick for the score while the defense limited the Colonels to five shots in the shutout.
"I think it has been a very productive preseason," Tinius said. "I think to a person we would all say there has been a bit of a different vibe so far. That said, vibes don't win games. We've certainly made progress in figuring out how all the new pieces and roles need to fit together, but we've got a long way to go and have to show we can keep that mindset in crunch time."
In addition to the Grand Valley State-Bellarmine match, No. 3 Columbus State and Union (TN) will meet at 5 p.m. Saturday at Frazier Stadium. Grand Valley State and Columbus State are slated for a 10 a.m., top-5 clash on Monday.
"This entire long weekend is a great opportunity for us to show our young players the type of environment we want to be a part of," Tinius said. "Every game will have something to offer the fans, and you have two teams facing off in the very last game of the weekend that have played each other in the Final Four the last two years.
"It's also cool for me on a personal level," Tinius added, "because all of these coaches are great people. (Columbus State Coach) Jay Entlich in particular has been a mentor to so many coaches. When I was a young assistant coach at schools in the south, I would work his camps and clinics and pick his brain, and that continues even today. Going down to Columbus last year and having them here this year is just a cool experience all the way around."
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