Adidas Ranks Viking Soccer Team 5th In Nation

The Vikings men’s soccer team are ranked 5th in the country by Adidas. They recently preserved their 4-0 record and won their 5th game in a row against Albany College of Pharmacy, leaving them still undefeated.

Both teams came out playing lights-out defense and both sides were very physical, but it wasn’t long before the Vikings offense wore down the defense of Albany. With Albany weakened and 6:34 on the game clock, Kevin Long scored the Vikings first goal in the first half to put them in the lead 1-0.

With Vikings offense gaining momentum and Albany defense getting weaker, the Vikings seized the opportunity to distance themselves and struck again, scoring their second goal thanks to Mike Ackerman. They managed to score within three minutes ending the first half with a 2-0 lead.

Both teams battled it out for 35 minutes to gain possession of the ball and tried to create opportunities to score. Within a 10-minute period of the game in the second half, Nana Akuoko scored the third the goal for the Vikings to put the game out of reach. After scoring their third goal, the tough Vikings defense took control of the game.

Afterwards, Coach Cook stated, “We are one team,” and “we would love to go undefeated.” The Vikings defense allowed only two goals out of the five entire games that they played. The center field for the Vikings is important with Ryan Millie and Eric Vanderbilt. Mike Ackerman stated, “We exited the postseason too early last season and this season we hope to go farther into the postseason.”
With the Vikings 5-0 right now, only time will tell how far the Vikings will go into the postseason.