Success is no accident for womens soccer

Being selected fifth in the Conference USA preseason poll, FIU women’s soccer team welcomed their 2013 preseason on full swing.

“It’s a great squad and it’s going to be another great year,” head coach Thomas Chestnutt said after ending last season 13-6-2.

The team picked up it’s second-straight Sun Belt Conference Tournament finals appearance and also finished their fourth-straight season with more than 10 wins.

This preseason the Panthers headed over to the west side to compete in two exhibition games in California against Long Beach State and Cal-Poly.

“We learned a lot from these exhibition games. Especially the game against Long Beach, that one helped a lot to know what we need to work on,” says senior captain Nicole DiPerna. “We are motivated to work really hard on our own.” Both games finished tied; Cal-Poly 1-1 and Long Beach 2-2.

For Chestnut, he feels that these exhibition games have brought the team closer.

“It has served as a great bonding experience (for the team), we visited the Santa Monica Pier and trained twice a day,” Chestnut said. “Game by game we are moving forward and we are preparing physically and mentally.”

 This season they will go against top contenders such as Florida and Arizona State whom they lost 3-0 last season. “We are working on possession and picking and choosing when to attack,” says DiPerna.

“We are focusing on playing defense first, and it will be an evolution during the season,” Chestnut said as he plans on continuing hard practices and learning from past games by watching game videos and “doing fine tuning to adjust to where we feel we are at.”

From now on the Panthers will live on by one motto, “Success is no accident.”

The Panthers will kick off the 2013 season Friday August 23rd at 7:00 p.m. on there home field against Arizona State.