KAMLOOPS – Coming off the best season in the program's Canada West history last year, the Thompson Rivers WolfPack women's soccer team have hit the ground running with a successful trip down to Portland, Oregon for a trio of preseason games.
 
"These trips are great for teambuilding as well as getting to see some different types of competition," said WolfPack head coach Mark Pennington. "The team is spending a lot of time together so lots of opportunity to grow both on and off the field and really work on integrating the new players into our culture and into our team."
 
Down in Oregon for a week, the 'Pack tied Warner Pacific University 2-2 before defeating both Corban University (4-1) and Lower Columbia College (5-3).
 
"It's difficult to tell the level of competition we played, it's hard to know how they would fare in our division," said Pennington. "It was a good opportunity to play everybody and was a good experience for everybody."
 
Taking advantage of time away from the distractions of home, the trip was about much more than the results on the field.
 
"They're definitely a lot more familiar with and comfortable around each other," said Pennington. "We had an opportunity to do a couple events including taking the team to TopGolf and hiking up to a waterfall so those types of things really help."
 
With the WolfPack dominating the majority of play in their games they were able to rotate their lineups and feature lots of new players, including the ten new faces on the team.
 
"There were some really good performances from our rookies," said Pennington. "Kat Stewart and Lillie Pearson both scored a couple goals down there and really sent a message to the coaching staff when it comes to the team selection that we are going to have to make in seven days. Amaya Heyes was consistently good in the midfield from a rookie point of view but really all of the rookies played well."
 
"From the veterans I thought Allie Shiyuk had a really good trip, she's worked really hard in the offseason and you can see that. Ainsley Grether was solid, Emily Clark scored I think six goals just doing what she does. Raiya Rumo and Alexis Virgo are really starting to form a partnership at the back."
 
Last year the WolfPack finished fourth in the Pacific Division with a record of 6-6-2. They then defeated both the UVic Vikes and MRU Cougars in the playoffs en route to making it all the way to the Canada West Final Four for the first time in program history.

TRU gets their 2023-24 season underway at home Friday, Aug. 25 when they host the MRU Cougars. Game time is set for 7 p.m. at Hillside Stadium and all members of KYSA, SoccerQuest and TOFC can enter the game for free.