The Ball State women’s soccer team welcomed the Haiti Women’s National Team for a second consecutive year Sunday afternoon for a spring match, which saw the Cardinals win 2-1.
Haiti’s head coach Shek Borkowski is also the coach for FC Indiana women’s semi-professional team which is located in South Bend. Borkowski and Ball State head coach Craig Roberts are friends, which would explain why Haiti made the pit stop in Muncie for the exhibition.
“I think it gives us ample amount of experience and it makes us grow tremendously as a program and as a team,” Roberts said.
Haiti entered the game ranked no. 57 in the FIFA world rankings and no. 6 in the CONCACAF for its region. Haiti is in the middle of training for the 2015 FIFA World Cup qualifications. The national team embarks on a Hoosier state road trip facing Notre Dame and Valparaiso in exhibitions in the weeks to come.
Ball State defeated Haiti 1-0 last season, and while this game was more offensive, the result was the same.
The Cardinals are coming off a record season in which it reached the Mid-American Conference championship for the first time in school history. Although Ball State lost four seniors following the 11-7-4 season, it has seven seniors on this year’s roster and eight freshmen coming in the fall.
“We have a pretty good incoming freshman class, and we’re all just working together,” senior forward Jasmine Moses said. “We’re always going to miss seniors but we’re all working together to make sure we can try to fill their places and just keep moving forward.”
Haiti challenged the Cardinals for 90 minutes as it exhibited physicality and poise on the defensive side of the ball. Haiti claimed the game’s first goal, forcing Ball State to match its opponent’s aggressive play. Although the game was an exhibition, the intensity levels grew as time continued.
“It’s different because it’s a different level and they’re very intense because, obviously, they’re a national team and they play in World Cups,” senior forward Nicole Pembleton said. “Nobody in the MAC is as physical as that, so we matched that today — it gives us a lot of confidence for the fall.”
Pembleton told Roberts that if Ball State can match the intensity of Haiti it can beat anybody in the MAC.
For the Cardinals, the evaluation process was magnified against Haiti.
“This was a really good game to expose some of the areas that we need to work on,” Roberts said.
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