ELON, N.C. – There are just five days remaining until the Elon University women's soccer team opens its 2019 campaign under second year head coach Neil Payne.
 
After a few days of training sessions and film review, the Phoenix concluded their exhibition slate with a solid 2-0 win over Wofford on Saturday night, Aug. 17. This preseason, Payne was able to get a lot of players some additional opportunities for playing time and to experiment with different lineups. The early results have been promising, as Payne coached his team to 5-0 and 2-0 shutout victories in both of the squad's exhibitions.
 
"We look pretty solid. We've got a lot of new players, but I've been very pleased with our shape," Payne stated. "We came into preseason a lot more prepared this year. There are a lot of new faces and some people playing in different positions, so these two preseason games have been good for us to experiment. We've been able to try new players and rest some players as well. I've definitely been pleased with what I've seen from the team so far."
 
Payne, who enters his second season at the helm of the program, will be working with a roster that returns 22 letterwinners from a season ago while adding a talented group of 9 freshmen to the fold for the upcoming year. With so many new faces, Payne knows how important this preseason has been.
 
"These two games have been very important for us – it definitely showed us a lot," Payne said. "There's still plenty of room for us to improve as a team but one thing that stuck out is that we've been very good defensively. Even with so many new faces, I think we look solid and have a lot of poise out there. It became clear early on that we're a lot harder to break down than we were last season. I've also been very pleased with the freshman class so far. They've all been performing well, and a lot of them have already scored goals for us."
 
The Phoenix will spend the final few days of preseason preparing for the regular season opener. Elon opens its 2019 campaign at home on Thursday, Aug. 22, with a 7 p.m. matchup with Canisius.