The Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) is a division 2 NCAA athletics conference. The Ashland University men’s soccer team has secured their spot in the GLIAC tournament.

The team secured their position with a 5-5-1 conference standing and a 5-8-1 overall season standing putting them at rank six out of eight. This is also the earliest that the team has ever secured a spot in the conference.

“It’s nice to achieve our goal early in the season,” Coach Oliver Slawson said.

“It is a phenomenal feeling knowing that we get the chance to defend our title and hopefully win another GLIAC tournament championship. It’s what we have worked for all season as a team and we can’t wait for the tournament to start,” men’s soccer player Jordan Dees said.

The team had three non-conference games that coach Slawson hoped to use in order to look at the strengths the team has already and see where the team needs to improve.

“Our ratio of chances to goals needs to be better,” Coach Slawson said. “The team is able to get chances to shoot the ball and make a goal but need to improve at getting the ball in the net. You can’t win games without putting the ball in the net.”

Though despite this the Ashland University men’s soccer team has had a good season only having one loss overall in both the conference and overall season games.

“It’s been up and down,” Coach Slawson said about the team’s season. “We had a slow start and a few injuries at the beginning of the season.”

The injuries threw the team off a bit at the start since injuries are something that neither the team nor coach Slawson can plan for.

“I would say as a team the season did not start how we wanted it to, but it has gradually begun to pick up momentum now that we have earned our spot in the GLIAC tournament and every single one of our team’s goals are ahead of us,” Jordan Dees said to describe the season.

However, the team has managed to fight through the slow start in order to secure their spot in the GLIAC conference.

The AU men’s soccer team plans to continue to work hard to improve in order to do the best that they can in the GLIAC conference.

“It’s the earliest we’ve ever qualified. We’re not built for a regular season and I think that speaks well for the effort the players put in.” Coach Slawson said.