MIDWAY, Ky. -- The Midway University men's soccer team will begin year three as a program on Wednesday, August 29, when they host Union (Ky.) in their season opener at 4 p.m. ET at the Midway Soccer Field.

The Eagles are coming off their best finish in program history in 2017. They finished the season with a 10-5-2 record overall and a 6-2-1 mark in River States Conference play.

For their work within conference play, they finished runner-up in the regular season standings. They also hosted the RSC Men's Soccer Tournament Championship leading to a runner-up finish in the conference tournament.

"I can't wait to get the season started," said head coach, Tim Wolz, who started the program back in 2016. "This is a team that I am excited about and I'm excited to see what we can accomplish this season."

Wolz has had his team back on campus for a couple of weeks and as he notes, he's liked what he's seen in preseason practices and training sessions. "The practices have been really good and our training sessions have been better than I thought they would be at this time."

Last year's team had plenty of experience with seven seniors, all of which started, but this season, Wolz has been dealt with the unenviable task of trying to replace those seven starters.

Wolz will certainly look to his returning players including his six seniors to help carry the load this season. Overall the Eagles will return 19 from last year's squad.

Offensively, the Eagles will look to senior captain, Callum Kemp (Lincoln, England). Last season, Kemp finished second on the team with eight goals and six assists for 22 total points.

Wolz will also turn to seniors, Reece Saunders (Exeter, England), Stephen Pueterbaugh (Alton, Ill.), Jose Coronado (El Valle de Anton, Panama), Jarol Prado (Pocri, Los Santos, Panama) and Carlos Pinto (Tonosi, Panama) all of which played meaningful minutes last season.

Midway also returns the services of Arnol Adame (Greenville, S.C.), Evan Sakamaki (Georgetown, Ind.) and Alex Enzweiler (Erlanger, Ky.) to help sure things up in the midfield.

In goal, Wolz will look to sophomore, Andres Ordonez (Guatemala City, Guatemala) to fill the void left by Christian Neira.

Wolz has been impressed with his returners, but he has also been impressed with some of the new players, some of which are expected to step in and play right away.

"The young kids are coming along really well," said Wolz. "The freshman class is better than I thought and it's going to be them adjusting to the physicality of the game and speed of play at the collegiate level."

Wolz noted that he expects junior college transfer, Max Noel (Paris, France) as well as freshman, Brandon Ballard (Harrodsburg, Ky.), Christian Melendez (Lexington, Ky.) and Drew Blaydes (Midway, Ky.) and step in and play right away.

Wolz also noted how a tougher conference will challenge his team saying, "Our conference is tough, the gap between the teams is getting smaller and smaller."

"Obviously our goal is to get into the postseason and hopefully we can be playing our best soccer at that time," added Wolz. "I think if we get hot at the right time we can surprise some teams in our conference."

Kickoff against Union College is 4 p.m. ET at the Midway Soccer Field. Live video and live stats will be available for the contest.

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