The Arkansas State soccer team kicks off its spring season against in-state foe Little Rock Saturday with more on the line this spring than in years past. 

While most spring seasons are used for a few exhibition matches and the development of players, this season gives the Red Wolves a chance to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. 

COVID-19 caused the NCAA tournament to be moved to this spring from the fall and a lot of conferences around the country started their regular season this semester. This gives teams from all conferences the chance to play matches that officially count during the spring season.

“It’s a different feeling in the spring,” A-State head coach Brian Dooley said. “We’re not used to competing in regular season type games in the spring. It’s hard to project what we might get. This is unique. It’s not just unique to us, it’s unique to everyone who is in this situation.”

After falling to South Alabama 2-1 in the Sun Belt Conference championship match in November after a controversial Olivia Smith red card while A-State was leading 1-0, the Red Wolves did not earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament that they would have earned with a win in the SBC title game. 

“I think anytime you fall a little bit short of your goal, it was out there in front of us, it can do two things,” Dooley said. “It can deflate you or it can motivate you. We’ve talked about a couple of things. You can be a victim or a champion. You know, how do you want to respond?”

Dooley said the team has realized this spring is a new opportunity and the opportunity from the fall to get the automatic bid is gone. 

“We say, ‘everyday we start at zero.’ That mentality has to be what drives us,” Dooley said. “If we think, ‘Oh man we were just a little bit short and we only have to do a little bit,’ then the gap is going to be wider. We want to start at zero everyday.”

A-State has scheduled a tough spring season including four games against Southeastern Conference opponents. After taking on Little Rock, the Red Wolves will head to Mississippi State, host Arkansas and then finish out the season on the road at Ole Miss and Arkansas. 

If the Red Wolves pick up a few good results, there’s a chance A-State could earn a bid into the NCAA tournament. However, it won’t be easy as the tournament field is slimmer than usual this year. 

In a normal year, 64 teams make the NCAA tournament. This year just 48 will get to play. 

“There’s still an outside chance, with the results, we could sneak in the tournament,” Dooley said. “It’s a remote chance, but that’s why we addressed the spring as our own NCAA tournament. We scheduled it in such a way that if we get a couple of good results, they have to look at you.”

The Red Wolves will be without a key player in their attack against Little Rock, Smith, as she’ll serve her one game suspension from her red card she received against South Alabama. 

“(Smith) really started to excel in the attacking mid role (in the fall),” Dooley said. “Quite frankly her spring, this is the best she’s ever played. She’s in her highest point right now. It’s amazing. It’s really tough for us to not have her in there.”

A-State and Little Rock are two programs very familiar with each other as both are SBC teams and the two in-state rivals meet every season. 

In the fall, the Red Wolves took down Little Rock in Jonesboro 1-0 and then battled to a tough 0-0 draw in the state’s capital. 

Little Rock has an outstanding freshman goalkeeper in Saskia Wagner and a stellar center back partnership of Natalee Geren and Julia Edholm. 

“If they give up five chances in a game, we’ve got to be efficient with those five chances,” Dooley said. “(Geren) always shadows to double on Sarah (Sodoma’s) side. She’s fast enough to make it hard for Sarah to cut in at a good angle.” 

In the Red Wolves’ 1-0 win in the fall, Geren played a great game against A-State’s all-time leading goal scorer, but Sodoma finally got the better of Geren in the second half to put in a cross for Abigail Miller to finish.

Victoria MacIntosh, A-State’s field general from the fall, graduated last semester and has left the team. While the Red Wolves will miss the calming presence of MacIntosh at defensive mid, experienced junior Hannah Maupin and Miller, a solid freshman, have already proven they can play in the holding mid positions very well. 

In the fall, Miller played in both attacking and defensive midfielder positions. With Miller set to slide into a more defensive role and with Smith out against Little Rock, freshman Darby Stotts or junior Riley Minard will be most likely to play the No. 10 role Saturday. 

The Red Wolves had hoped that Keelyn Peacock, a freshman who graduated high school early to join A-State this spring, would be able to make an instant impact.  

While the Stillwater, New York native has started to develop well in practice already, she won’t get the chance to hit the pitch officially this spring in an actual match due to NCAA regulations. 

The NCAA has given thousands of collegiate athletes another year of eligibility due to COVID-19 and given winter sport athletes permission to play early from high school but will not allow Peacock to suit up for A-State this spring. 

“We’ve asked for a waiver, it’s been denied,” Dooley said. “There’s been 80 waivers requested and all 80 have been denied. So, they feel it’s necessary to keep 80 student athletes from competing, 80 out of 176,000 Division I athletes who have all been given a whole nother year of eligibility. But they won’t let 80 kids play six games.”

Dooley said the rationale from the NCAA is teams would get a recruiting or competitive advantage. 

“They allowed a transfer who didn’t play in the fall,” Dooley said. “Why isn’t that considered a competitive or recruiting advantage.”

Dooley said if Peacock was available for the match against Little Rock, she would play as the freshman has developed well in practice. 

A-State will have 16 field players available for the game against Little Rock and some of those players will need to have limited minutes. Numbers are short this spring for the Red Wolves, but impact players exist throughout the entire squad.

Dooley pointed to Abigail Glockzin as the biggest question mark this spring for A-State. 

“I think the big question for us is where Glockzin is going to fit in here,” Dooley said.  “She’s shown some real promise in our scrimmages as well in that high No. 9 role. We’re kind of waiting for her to show it. We know it’s there. If she’s feeling it, she can be the difference tomorrow.”

Dooley said Sodoma and Glockzin just haven’t quite yet found that chemistry in the attacking third. 

“There’s times they’re just a little bit off here or there,” Dooley said. “If we can get them to link four times in a half, I think one of those four are going to create a really good scoring opportunity.”

Dooley said the Red Wolves have spent a lot of time on making better chances in the final third of the pitch and he expects his team to create a lot of scoring chances against the Trojans. 

“(We need) to avoid scenarios where we are just serving a wild ball in hoping for someone to get on the end of it,” Dooley said. “We’re trying to eliminate those choices because we never score in those situations. We score when we’re deliberate.” 

Kick off from the A-State Soccer Complex is set for 2 p.m. Saturday.

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