Yellowjacket Soccer Opens with Tough Road Games (8/24/05)
BILLINGS, MT – Montana State-Billings
head soccer coach Dan McNally won’t have the luxury of
beginning his career with an easy early season schedule.
McNally—in his first year as a head coach—will kick off his
career this weekend when the Jackets open the 2005 season with
games in Denver at Metropolitan State and Colorado School of
Mines.
Metro State and Colorado School of Mines
have been picked to finish 2-3 in the tough Rocky Mountain
Athletic Conference. Both teams had stellar 2004 seasons and
return a number of the RMAC’s best players.
Metro State finished second in the RMAC
regular season with an 8-3-1 conference record. The
Roadrunners won the conference tournament and finished 15-4-2
overall. They return Preseason All-RMAC players Phil Owen,
Preston Borrego, Antonio Porras, and Zack Cousins. Owen and
Borrego each earned All-Midwest Region honors in 2004. The
Yellowjackets are 0-5 all time against the Roadrunners, losing
3-0 in Denver last year.
Colorado School of Mines placed third in
the RMAC in 2004 with a 7-3-2 conference record and a 10-4-5
overall mark. The Orediggers return Preseason All-RMAC
players Rafael Ribeiro, Mike Dixon, and Kevin Galloway.
Ribeiro and Dixon combined to score 15 of the team’s 33 goals
last year while Galloway was 8-3-4 in goal with a 0.77 goals
against average. MSU Billings is 0-3 all time against the
Orediggers, including a 3-1 loss in Denver last season.
The Yellowjackets played an exhibition
game last Saturday against North Idaho College. After falling
behind 1-0 on an own goal in the first half, the Jackets
rebounded to tie the game in the final minutes to secure a 1-1
draw. Senior Patrick Boltz (Kaneohe, HI) scored the tying
goal off a Josh Hernandez (So., Palmdale, CA) corner kick.
MSU Billings will rely on its defense in
the early season while the Yellowjackets are searching for
their offensive identity. The Jackets lost last year’s top
scorer Thomas Pertuit to graduation. Now an assistant coach
with the Yellowjackets, Pertuit scored 11 of the team’s 24
goals last year.
Adding to the challenge of the early
season will be the fact that the Yellowjackets do not play a
home game until September 21 when they host fifth-ranked
University of the Incarnate Word (TX). Ten of the Jackets’
first 11 games are away from Billings with trips to Colorado,
Utah, and North Dakota. |
