BEAUMONT, Texas — Lamar soccer starts the Nathan Kogut era with a 3-0 win over Houston.
“For your first win to have that crowd there, all of your peers show up, that was really really neat," said Coach Kogut. "It meant a lot to be able to when you’re walking out the the field before the game or post game and you’re getting handshakes from basically your coaching peers that’s really really cool. Hopefully we gave the fans something to come for because we do have quite a few home games this year and they made a massive difference.”
For the Cardinals performance against the Coogs, Lamar soccer swept the Southland Conference's player of the week awards.
“It just shows you it it takes everybody," said Coach Kogut. "We have the goalkeeper of the week, she pitches a shutout, get a defender of the week, she helped with that shutout, and then we had some really good goals, but it took everybody. That was really really cool to see a little recognition."
"We’re not anywhere close to done but it was nice to see," said Coach Kogut. "We had a good win. We performed really well, and the girls deserve it. We sit on the sideline. They are the ones that have to go out there and do their job and they did it.”
The Cardinals play their next three games at home. The team hopes to play off the momentum of their first win of the season when they hit the field against Texas Southern and carry that spirit on into November.
“They can do really really big things and I don’t know what that looks like," said Coach Kogut. "I think it’s one of those where when you get there you realize it, but there’s a lot of potential in this group. They’ve got kids that have won trophies before. They’ve got kids that expect that, and we’ve got some really good pieces that came in that want that. With that in mind, we showed a lot of potential of what we can be, and it was only one game. My challenge to them is we’ve got two months left. That can’t be the peak of our season.”
Lamar hosts Texas Southern on Thursday, August 25, at 7:30 p.m.