The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s soccer team will host Alabama A&M Friday afternoon in a 1:00 p.m. kickoff at Finley Stadium to open the 2018 season.
“We are all really excited for Friday,” McKinney said of the season-opener. “We’ve worked extremely hard over the last several weeks. We’ve seen growth, so we’re ready to get the season started.”
The Mocs return 15 members from the 2017 squad including SoCon Freshman of the Year Chloe Arnold and all-conference performer Jordan Mueller. Chattanooga fields just two seniors and six juniors to go along with seven sophomores and seven freshmen.
“It will be 3:00 on Friday afternoon,” McKinney said. “We play Sundays midafternoon throughout the year. We’ve got to get used to playing in those types of conditions. It will more than likely be a chance where we give several players the opportunity to play and rotate throughout the squad because we do play at Georgia Southern on Sunday.”
Alabama A&M head coach Emanuel Stephens, in his second season, has a young squad with 12 freshman, eight sophomores and just two seniors and juniors each. The Bulldogs finished last season with a 4-14 overall record and were picked to finish sixth in the SWAC.
“They were a much tougher opponent last year and we expect them to be much improved once again,” McKinney said. “They always have some fantastic athletes on the team so they make it a really competitive match from that standpoint.”
In the preseason, the Mocs earned a pair of ties with comebacks in each match. After giving up an early goal to Belmont, Chattanooga knotted it up 1-1 in the 72nd minute on a shot from junior Bailey Gale.
Last Sunday in the preseason finale, the Mocs trailed 2-0 early into the second half. In the space of three minutes more than midway through the period, Chattanooga had goals from Masey Fox and Chloe Arnold to tie the match.
The Mocs who placed sixth last season, were picked to finish seventh in the Southern Conference preseason poll, just one point behind ETSU and Mercer who tied for fifth in the balloting.
Admission is free to all UTC home soccer matches. Concessions will be available and no outside food is allowed.
Please be aware of the clear bag policy implemented for Finley Stadium this season. A complete list of items on the accepted and unaccepted list are available at GoMocs.com.