By Greg Sainer

Activities Editor

The 2011 recruiting class has been finalized for the Eastern men’s soccer team, leaving head coach Adam Howarth optimistic about the upcoming season.

The recruiting class, of seven freshmen and four transfer students, is the 10th for head coach Adam Howarth, who is looking to improve the Panthers’ 4-12-1 record from the 2010 season of.

The class is stocked with all-conference and all-league team honorees, and includes several players who helped their high school teams win state championships or make the playoffs.

“What was kind of nice [was that] we had a little bit of scholarship money to work with this year, which definitely helped us, [so] yeah, I’m really happy with the class,” Howarth said. “We were able to get the kids that we wanted and we feel really good about the group.”

Howarth said he expects his recruits to contribute immediately, equating the eleven new players to gaining a whole new team that will push his senior class to improve itself.

“I’m expecting all of these guys to push right away,” Howarth said. “I don’t think there is one player on the eleven that shouldn’t be pushing to get some playing time. We’ve got a good nucleus back. A good senior class of six guys, and it’s going to push them.”

Howarth said it is too early to tell if any of the players will stand out.

“It’s hard to say,” he said. “Until we see them, we can only evaluate players by their high school, club, or whatever. I think everybody in that group should be pushing right away. That’s how we recruited them.”

Looking forward to the season, Howarth said his focus will be on improving the team’s ability to finish games well and bring in wins.

“Our biggest thing is we’ve got to get over the hump,” Howarth said. “We had a hard time winning games last year. We lost seven or eight games 1-0. We’ve got to learn to win a little bit.”

In order to reach this goal, Howarth said he is focusing on the preseason in order to determine where his new recruits will fit into the team.

“They come in August 9th and August 10th will be [the start of] preseason,” Howarth said. “Our preseason is basically about two weeks. We play three preseason games. We use those to really figure out where the team is and who is going to play in what positions. The good thing is we can train, but then we can also evaluate in games.

“The games don’t mean anything whether or not we win or lose. Obviously we want to win every game, but they don’t count on our record. So then we can prepare ourselves and be ready for Northwestern on August 26th.”

Greg Sainer can be reached at 581-7942

or gpsainer@eiu.edu.

Alex Harrison a senior forward chases down the ball Oct. 20, on Lakeside Field against Bradley University. (File Photo

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