Bethel Men’s Soc­cer Looks to Re­peat 2021 Sea­son

MISHAWAKA—Bethel men’s soc­cer is com­ing off a suc­cess­ful 16-5-2 sea­son where the Pi­lots won the Cross­roads League cham­pi­onship over In­di­ana Wes­leyan. By win­ning the Cross­roads League, the Pi­lots also qual­i­fied for the NAIA Cham­pi­onships where they won a game and lost a game. To start the 2022 sea­son, the Pi­lots are 1-0-1 with a win over Holy Cross and a draw to South­east­ern Uni­ver­sity. 

“I mean it’s al­ways high,” Head Coach Thi­ago Pinto said. “With the group we have, they them­selves have high ex­pec­ta­tions, but for me, the ex­pec­ta­tion is to see that we are at a much higher level than we were at the be­gin­ning, in terms of how we play the game, but most im­por­tant is that we can rep­re­sent our­selves, our school, on and off the pitch.” 

Within this year’s squad they have a good mix of ex­pe­ri­ence and youth. The team is com­piled of nine­teen un­der­class­men and twelve up­per­class­men, a bal­ance that you will rarely find among teams at the NAIA level. 

“It’s mas­sive,” Pinto said. “It helps, most im­por­tantly, how the youth can adapt; all the new play­ers are able to adapt a lot faster with the ex­pe­ri­ence that we have. We are well set up to break a thresh­old and ex­pe­ri­ence some­thing we have not ex­pe­ri­enced be­fore, and that’s a big drive for this group.” 

One of the key lead­ers on the team is Luan Bressy. The ju­nior from Sal­vador, Brazil scored six goals in six­teen games last sea­son, but so far this sea­son Bressy has net­ted three goals in Bethel’s two games. He was also named Cross­roads League Of­fen­sive Player of the Week for the week of Aug. 15. 

“I mean I think we saw it com­ing,” Pinto said. “In Jan­u­ary and in the spring, he was our fittest guy. He also had a good sum­mer; he was in a good en­vi­ron­ment. He was at Torch Soc­cer Min­istries this sum­mer with four other guys, and I think that was a great en­vi­ron­ment for them. They were train­ing 3-4 times a week at a de­cent level with other col­lege play­ers. But the men­tor­ship and the bible stud­ies, I think they re­ally helped him be bet­ter pre­pared emo­tion­ally, spir­i­tu­ally and phys­i­cally.” 

For more in­for­ma­tion on the men’s soc­cer team visit bupi­lots.com.