The Southeast Missouri State women's soccer team will open its season against Missouri S&T on Aug. 21 in Rolla, Missouri.

Southeast played a preseason exhibition match against Memphis on Aug. 12 , which the team dropped 2-0.

Despite the result, the coaches were happy with the outing though.

"We saw a lot of great things in that matchup," assistant coach Adam Kleman said.

Southeast will be returning the majority of the team's starters while also adding some new faces.

One of the new faces on the team is sophomore goalkeeper Alyssa Sickler, who is a transfer from Heartland Community College.

"She's going to help me improve on my skills and get me better," sophomore goalkeeper Lierz said.

Sickler will be playing behind 2014 Ohio Valley Conference defender and freshman of the year Kindra Lierz.

Lierz is coming off a remarkable season where she led the OVC in shutouts with eight.

Lierz started all 17 games for the Redhawks and played in 1,534 minutes as a true freshman.

"Not a lot of freshman get that kind of time I got, so getting that time it made me get the experience I did a lot faster than what most people get," Lierz said.

Lierz spent the offseason in Cape Girardeau where she worked with the team's strength coach four times a week.

"I wanted to get strength in my legs and I've been trying to work on my dropkicks to get kicks further so my team can get higher," Lierz said.

Lierz is motivated to prove last year was not a fluke.

"She put a personal motivation into herself to not let freshman year be a fluke but to build off it and continue to strive to get better so she can have a solid sophomore season as a leader," Kleman said.

Last season the Redhawks shared the regular season OVC championship with SIU Edwardsville. The team finished 11-6 overall and 8-2 in conference play.

This season, Lierz feels she has a head start when it comes to the relationship with her defenders.

"The chemistry is already there," Lierz said. "We don't have to work on chemistry since we have been together for a year."

The team arrived this season fit and ready to go with 98 percent of the players passing their fitness test.

"There's a big commitment upon my arrival from last year assuring everyone came in fit and was ready for the season to begin and it really carried over with all the upperclassmen and their leadership throughout the offseason," Kleman said.

Players see the difference this season as well.

"The freshman and everyone came in so fit this year and I think that's made preseason a lot easier so we can focus more on ball handling and team play rather than the fitness," junior midfielder Natasha Minor said.

The transfer and six freshmen this year are making their presence felt this offseason. They are pushing the upperclassmen to their limits, Minor said.

"Were going to be gritty, we're going to be scrappy and were going to make sure when other teams have the ball that were going to make it difficult for them," Kleman said.

The players and coaches confidence is there that the team can have another great season, it's just about going out and actually completing the task.

"We definitely feel that we're going to have a lot of the components that we need to have a successful season and now it's just time to go show it on the field," Kleman said.