Photo by Sam Thiel SMSU’s Julianne Arballo leaps to prevent the College of St. Benedict’s Sydney Burns from scoring during their exhibition game on Friday. SMSU fell to St. Ben’s 1-0.

MARSHALL — While it might have been marked as an exhibition game on the schedule, it meant a little more to the Southwest Minnesota State University soccer team, who took the field for the first time in nearly two years after having last season wiped out due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

SMSU coach Erin Kasmarik-Mallett said it was great to be back on the field for a competition and get to put all of their hard work to the test.

“I think everybody’s searching for the same sense of normalcy with an exhibition, so us just getting on our home field, there’s been so many hours and so much work put in and it’s just nice to be able to get to do what we want to do which is play our games,” Kasmarik-Mallett said.

The Mustangs battled the College of St. Benedict’s on Friday evening at Mattke Field, and despite going toe-to-toe with the Bennies, SMSU fell just short in a 1-0 final.

Despite the final result, Kasmarik-Mallett said it was a great opportunity for them to learn as a group and felt they did a good job of executing on both sides of the ball.

“For us, we always start with defense first. We want to be solid and organized and communicate; we have a very young group and we haven’t done a single finishing activity yet in our entire preseason, so the fact that we’ve spent very little time focusing on that piece of our game and we’re already as dangerous as we are, that’s just an exciting piece for us,” Kasmarik-Mallett said. “Our big focus for these games is sorting out our puzzle of talented players, we have a talented group and it’ll be our job as coaches to figure out how to put them in the best positions to be successful. That’s what these exhibitions are for, it’s for them as well as us to learn.”

Playing in the format of three, 30-minute periods, St. Ben’s jumped out to an early lead with a goal with 24:14 left in the opening period. Both teams would have chances to get on the board throughout the remainder of the frame, with SMSU’s best opportunity coming with roughly six minutes left, but the shot went just wide as the Bennies took a 1-0 lead into the second period.

SMSU continued its aggressiveness on offense to start the second, getting several quality scoring chances but weren’t able to capitalize. The Mustangs would spend the majority of the frame on St. Ben’s side of the field, but couldn’t find the back of the net, as the Bennies still held a one-goal lead going into the final frame. St. Ben’s would then keep SMSU at bay in the third to hold on for the 1-0 victory.

SMSU outshot St. Ben’s 13-4 on the game. Kirsten Wetterstrom led the Mustangs with seven shots.

Kasmarik-Mallett said they have a lot of explosive players on the attack and felt they did a good job of pushing the ball downfield for scoring chances, especially in the second frame.

“We have some dynamic talent up top and some players who can help us win the ball and get it to them. That’s part of our style of play, we want to let our attackers be dangerous, which means if we can do our job defensively and win the ball high up the field, they’re going to create chances,” Kasmarik-Mallett said. “That’s probably the most important thing right now, I’d rather have the issue of how to finish our shots than how to create them because for me, creating is the harder part.”

Defensively, SMSU recorded two saves, both from Julianne Arballo.

Up next

SMSU will wrap up its exhibition schedule today against Dakota Wesleyan University at home at 5 p.m. Kasmarik-Mallett said going into their final exhibition game, they want to increase their conditioning as well as continue to build confidence with their younger players.

“Our big goal is to slowly increase our game fitness, so that was definitely a takeaway and I think we’re making really good progress there,” Kasmarik-Mallett said. “And then just starting to build the confidence of our young team and their relationships; that’s what these games are for and we’re just excited to see that grow and develop.”