Stephen Slezak, Campus Carrier asst. sports editor
The men’s and women’s soccer season has kicked off as the Vikings look to build on the seasons of last year. In 2023, the Women’s team ended with a 5-10-1 record while the Men’s team ended with a 5-7-5 record.
Kathy Brown is back for her fifth season as the head coach of the women’s soccer team. Through the previous five seasons, Brown has compiled a record of 31-25-4. Under her guidance, the Vikings finished second in the 2022 Southern Athletic Association (SAA). Berry comes into the season predicted to finish fourth in the SAA Women’s soccer preseason poll.
With only a couple weeks between the start of school and the season opener, there is not much time to ease into practice. Preseason training intensifies with scrimmages and practices working to prepare for the season.
“Our preseason was like no other as far as the intensity,” Brown said. “We did things we have never done before.”
Berry scheduled two preseason scrimmages this year with the opponents being Mercer University and The University of North Georgia (UNG). Playing schools outside of division three in most sports like soccer is a rare occurrence and one to be noted. Mercer is a division one program while UNG is division two.
“It’s an opportunity, not an obstacle,” Brown said. “It’s a great challenge for us. We have players who can compete.”
The Vikings start off the season with a tough schedule, in hopes that it will prepare the team for conference play later in the season. With 22 returning players, there is valuable veteran experience returning to help guide this year’s team.
“We’re playing very good teams, and that’s intentional,” Brown said. “We want to win soccer games. More importantly is how we play soccer.”
The Vikings have started off slow with a 0-3-2 record, however there is upside in how the team has been playing.
“We lost a game to Covenant the other night, we just couldn’t score,” Brown said. “We’re moving the ball; how we’re playing the game is really quality.”
Berry starts conference play Sept. 28 at Sewanee.
Richard Vardy is back for his 22nd season as the head coach of the Men’s soccer team. Throughout his previous 21 seasons, Vardy has compiled a record of 254-117-39. Vardy has coached 65 All-SAA selections with three SAA championships coming in 2020, 2014 and 2012. Berry comes into the season predicted to finish fourth in the SAA Men’s soccer preseason poll.
With the new additions to the Vikings this year, team chemistry is something that is crucial to be able to communicate with one another on the field. This year’s team is veteran led with good depth of players behind the starters.
“The team chemistry is good, everybody is getting along well,” Vardy said. “When everyone is fit and healthy, I feel as though we have got a pretty deep team this year. When we start making subs and start going to the bench, I feel as though we do not lose a lot.”
The expectations for the Vikings have not changed from previous years. Winning the SAA is an accomplishment that is first on every team’s check list at Berry. The most recent SAA championship came back in 2020, with last year the team finishing with a 1-3-3 record in the SAA.
“We always want to win the conference,” Vardy said. “Our conference is very competitive. We practice every day as hard as we can and compete in every game we play for 90 minutes against a lot of strong opponents.”
Leading the way for the Vikings are a mix of returners and newcomers who look to take back the conference championship. There are 12 newcomers joining the Vikings for the 2024 season mixed in with 15 returners. Five of the newcomers are transfers from Birmingham-Southern. Birmingham-Southern college was a member of the SAA, before recently closing down.
“We’ve got a good group of older players,” Vardy said. “Tracy Moon, [Pirmin] Blattman, they are both in the MBA program. Dylan Bloch, one of our seniors. Jensen Brown who will hopefully score some goals for us this year. Brock Shultz and Nate Dulin will hopefully have good seasons in the midfield and bring a lot of energy to the team.”
So far in the beginning of the season, the Vikings have started 0-2-2 with ties to Southwestern and Hardin-Simmons University. Conference play starts Sept. 28 at Sewanee.