STILLWATER – Oklahoma State soccer will again open up the athletic year for the school and the program has a tradition of making the school proud as Cowgirls soccer has won seven Big 12 Championships since the program started and they’ve made 14 trips to the NCAA Tournament . Oklahoma State will open the regular season at Omaha on Thursday evening. The team won their exhibition game last Saturday 3-0 over Division II power Central Oklahoma.
“You could see the nerves in all those new kids, but they actually played well,” head coach Colin Carmichael said of his young team and their win last Saturday. “You could really see it, like Gracie B (Gracie Bindbeutal – freshman forward) said, ‘I could have scored three goals’ and she will once she settles down. They were all nervous and fired up and that’s normal.”
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Alex Morris (19) takes a shot against UCO last Saturday.
Alex Morris, Grace Yochum, and Ally Jackson all scored goals. All three veteran players, but they know how good the freshmen are and how much they will contribute this season.
“I think everybody has got a sense of what the season is going to be like and how we’re going to play,” Morris said on Tuesday in anticipation of the opener in Omaha. “Getting a taste of that competition and the game on Thursday has everyone ramped up for the opener. Everybody is excited for the game on Thursday.”
They may be even more motivated after the Big 12 Preseason Coaches Poll was released later on Tuesday. Oklahoma State goes into every season expecting to play for a championship. Colin Carmichael admitted every school in the Big 12 is now chasing defending champion TCU, but he feels several schools could get it done including his team. The Big 12 coaches had Oklahoma State in fifth.
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Colin Carmichael is still as intense as ever.
“The potential is there to make a run at the Big 12 Championship, but with so many young players the potential is also there to be inconsistent,” Carmichael said. “If the young girls start clicking and the veteran players play to the level they are expected then the ceiling for this group is very high. It is just a matter of how quickly we can get there.”
The Cowgirls are coming off a season in which they finished fourth in the league with a 4-3-1 mark. OSU posted a 9-6-3 overall record a year ago and returns six starters from that squad.
Defending champion TCU is the favorite to retain its crown, earning seven first-place votes, while Texas was picked second and West Virginia third. Up next was Texas Tech before the Cowgirls rounded out the top half of the poll.
| Big 12 Soccer Preseason Poll – First place votes in (); coaches were not allowed to vote for their own team |
| Team | Points |
| TCU (7) | 78 |
| Texas (1) | 66 |
| West Virginia (1) | 60 |
| Texas Tech | 53 |
| Oklahoma State | 49 |
| Oklahoma (1) | 40 |
| Baylor | 34 |
| Kansas | 30 |
| Iowa State | 24 |
| Kansas State | 16 |
OSU opens the season Thursday at Omaha before returning to Stillwater for its home opener Sunday against Missouri State at Neal Patterson Stadium.
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