Preparing for success

Updated 3:15 p.m. Feb. 11, 2020

The UTRGV Men’s Soccer Club is reaching out to students who are interested in continuing to play soccer at a competitive level by inviting them to practices.

Anyone is welcome to join the team, the only requirement is to be either a UTRGV graduate or undergraduate student.

“As long as they are a UTRGV student, the club is open to every student who wants to join,” soccer club President Alejandro Garcia said. “Once you’ve joined the team, you need to show the coaches that you do have the skills to compete because there are other students who also want to compete and also want to play, but that happens in every team. You go there to compete.”

There are currently five conferences in the Texas Collegiate Soccer League and the men’s soccer club plays under the Premier League Conference, which is at the highest level. They now play against top schools such as the University of Texas at Austin, whose soccer club qualified for The National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association men’s soccer championships in 2015, according to The Daily Texan, the newspaper at the University of Texas at Austin.

Also competing in the Premier League Conference is Baylor University’s Men’s Soccer Club, which defeated UTRGV 3-2 last season.

Ever since the club began in 2017, the team has only kept advancing in conference, ascending to the second division in 2018 and reaching the Premier League Conference Fall 2019.

Maxwell Hill, a graduate medical student and defender, hopes that this step up in the league encourages more students to join the team.

“We know that UTRGV is full of good soccer players who’ve grown up playing soccer their whole lives but maybe just haven’t heard about the club soccer team and a chance to continue playing competitive soccer,” Hill said. “So, we’re hoping to make people aware of our team so that we can have [a] competitive team and do well in the league this year.”

Head Coach Hugo Zuñiga invites everyone to keep growing as people and players.

“We hope to keep getting more and more players,” Zuñiga said. “This is a new tournament, and, therefore, we expect to have new members on the team to have a more complete group.”

Practice is from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at the field behind the UREC.

“The team is currently getting back to work,” Garcia said. “We just started practicing last week and we are focusing on getting the team ready for our first game.”

The UTRGV Men’s Soccer Club’s first game is 3 p.m. Saturday against the University of the Incarnate Word at their home field in San Antonio.