After two scrimmages, the Cosumnes River College men’s soccer team has struggled in their pre-season but plans to improve this season.
The Hawks faced the Sacramento Republic 18U team on Friday in a scrimmage to finish their pre-season.
Ron Preble, head coach of the men’s soccer team, said it’s a work in progress to come out of pre-season. There had been some issues, such as some players being sick or out of town that caused some difficulty during the pre-season, Preble said.
“Today was the first time I think we were put under a lot of pressure,” Preble said. “The last time we played, we were the more dominant team.” Preble said the team will work towards progress this season and can make necessary changes as they develop through the pre-season.
“We’re excited to work with the new group,” Preble said. “There is a lot of upside and we are looking into getting everybody on the same page and playing the same way.”
Sophomore left back, Gael Avila, said the team did a good job during the pre-season and is looking forward to “coming in hard” for the next conference game. Some of the changes he would like to make are to get more statistics, get involved in attack and help the team out.
“The previous season I think I did pretty well,” Avila said. “I had three assists and played the full 90 minutes. I hope to get more than three assists this season and play 90 minutes again.”
Kaushik Sriram, freshman midfielder and winger, said the team is ready for the season after they put the work in during the three weeks and double-days of the pre-season.
“I feel like we did well, at least better than the last game, especially against a team that’s younger but a quality team nonetheless,” Sriram said.
Hawks assistant coach Jorge Luis Ortega said they are setting “building blocks” for the season and have a lot of pieces coming together to build up for the season.

The Hawks won their first game of the regular season against Butte College 2-0. Their next home game will be against Monterey Peninsula College on Sept. 8.
“We have a very talented squad, we have a lot of good individual players,” Ortega said. “It’s just about connecting pieces of the puzzle and making sure we’re doing all things correctly.”