The Spartans soccer season ended on May 17, 2021 in the semi-finals to eventual runner-up Morgan. The first few games are always a question mark mostly due to the unknown weather that early spring brings, but on Tuesday they traveled to Delta to face the Rabbits an earned a shutout victory 1-0.

Delta is coming off a tremendous 20-21 season in which they ended with a 16-3 overall record going 11-1 in region play and landing the No. 2 spot in the RPI. Their season ended in the semi-finals at the hands of the 3A state champions Judge Memorial. Delta also has five returning players from last years squad as well.

Emery soccer coach Troy Winter joined us on KOAL’s Drive Time Sports to talk about some of the players that are returning this season.

“We lost a few seniors last year and we gained some really good seniors this year, some good underclassmen. I’m really looking forward to some of our seniors this year. McCallister Beagley, Alex Noriega and  Marko Ilijic, we’re kind of looking forward to see how things go with them this year, they’ve been in the system for a while, they’ve played with us and they do club stuff so I’m really, really excited to see what they bring to the team this year.”

Well Coach Winter didn’t have to wait long as Noriega, who led the team last season with seven goals. picked up right where he left off, scoring the lone goal for the Spartans and the defense stepped up and pitched the 1-0 shutout.

Emery now heads to St. George for a weekend tournament on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Then on Mar. 15, they go back on the road, this time to Moab to face Grand.

The first home game is set for Mar. 18 as they welcome Carbon to the new field in Castle Dale. The game will be played under the lights and is set to begin at 7 p.m..