The women’s soccer team participated in a scrimmage Aug. 22 at the Bill Stephens Track and Soccer Complex after the game against Alcorn State was canceled.

Jeremy Bishop, the women’s soccer head coach,  said due to a lack of players on the Alcorn State roster, the UCA women’s soccer team invited fans to watch a team scrimmage as a part of the back-to-school bash.

Bishop said “Alcorn didn’t have enough players” and the Bears will not be playing Alcorn State later in the season.

“We won’t have a chance to make it up, so we won’t play them,” he said. “It was a non-conference game, so not a game that we have to play. Their coach said they only had eight players. So right now, they’re waiting on some more to get eligible.”

“The second goal that the white team scored was a really good combination played through the middle,” Bishop said. “Nina [Mazzola] was able to define Anna [Kerr] on the back post, and so she put it in. That was a good combination, good movement, good attacking sequence for us.”

This upcoming season, Bishop said he wants to “continue to do a good job on the defensive side” and “recognize what’s on when we have the ball.”

Bishop said, “I think a lot of it is just kind of that transition movement of recognizing what we need to do at that point so that we can get the numbers around it to either defend it or attack it.”

Bishop said to keep an eye on freshman forward Sophia Backstrom and that the team has “several freshmen that are vying for minutes.”

Senior forward Anna Kerr discussed her accidental goal.

“I will tell you the truth, it was a shoss, which means I did not mean to shoot it,” she said. “I definitely was trying to cross it.”

Kerr said that during her final season with the women’s soccer team, the culture has improved drastically.

“We have a great team culture. We have 10 freshmen coming in. We’ve all welcomed them. They’ve all felt great here,” Kerr said. “We’re all girls — there can be drama. Personally, I’ve had drama with people before and just improving on that, even just with them, shows and this makes you feel like a better person. It makes everybody else positive on the team, on and off the field.”

Like Bishop, Kerr said Sophia Backstrom is a promising freshman who holds potential.

Kerr said Backstrom, who started the first game of the season, “runs anywhere.”

“She’ll run the whole game. She can run around the whole time. She’s been doing very well with us,” Kerr said. “Sophia just kind of came right in and clicked with us all.”