The women’s soccer team looks forward to a successful season, starting off with two wins under its belt.

The Bears started the season at home with a 4-0 victory over the Mississippi Valley State Devilettes.

Senior forward Adriana Lucar scored the first goal of the season 18 minutes into the game, which was quickly followed by another goal by freshman Shelby Wilson. Wilson’s score marked her first career goal.

The Bears held a 3-0 lead in the first half.Junior Alex Wurst scored the last two goals of the game and the only goal of the second half.

Sophomore goal keeper Hayley Romero required little use as she saved only one ball, allowing zero goals.

The Bears played the Lady Techsters in Ruston, La. on Sunday to gain a 2-0 lead for the season with their 2-0 win over the Lady Techsters.

The Bears used the scoring of junior midfielder/forward Brooke Ballard for the first goal in the 26th minute. Lucar assisted Ballard for this goal.

Freshman midfielder/forward Kate Koch netted the second, and final, goal of the game in the 59th minute to give the Bears a 2-0 lead.

Last season, the Bears held a 10-7-1 overall record, which doubled their win total from the previous season.

Lucar made program history last season when she was named to the 2012 All-Southland Conference First Team, marking the first Bear to be awarded the title since the Bears joined the Southland Conference in 2006.

She was also awarded Newcomer of the Year.

Lucar started all 18 games last season and led the Southland Conference in points with 30 and points per game with 1.67.

She finished with 14 goals and two assists on the season with 30 of her 45 shots on goal.

Along with being team leader  last season and conference leader, Lucar also finished with a 3.75 GPA in 2012.

Head Coach Jeremy Bishop said the team had a lot of firsts last year and the team plans to continue to add to those.

“We are not satisfied with just making improvements last year,” he said. “We want to use last year’s success as a foundation to build more success.”

Bishop said he decided to add new teams to the Bears’ nonconference schedule, including Missouri State, University of Missouri—Kansas City and Texas A&M—Corpus Christi. He said teams were added in nonconference and conference play to strengthen the team.

Adding the teams to the schedule was needed to make it more difficult so the team could get better, he said.

The teams the Bears were facing were “not challenging [enough]to prepare, [for the Bears],” he said.

“Our schedule is pretty tough, but that is a good thing because we are going to get better,” Lucar said.

Bishop said the team needs to focus on sharpening its attacks and defending. The team also needs to clean up its technical abilities.Lucar said the team has put an emphasis on putting pressure on the opponent.

“We are doing a good job of moving the ball from side to side. We changed our formation, now we are playing a 4-3-3,” she said. “Defending has been a big thing this preseason.”

The Bears see 23 returning players this season, which Bishop said he believes will benefit the team throughout the season.

“We have a large group of juniors and seniors this year that have been through it,” he said. “They will be able to help lead our group though the entire season.”

Lucar said the team has set goals to go to the conference tournament and to receive a 3.3 team GPA.

The Bears will play the first ever night game at UCA at 7 p.m. Friday against Arkansas State.