Nicholls says farewell to pair of soccer players in season finale versus Demons

When the Nicholls soccer team takes the field at 7 p.m. Friday at the Thibodaux Regional Sports Complex to close out the 2023 season, it will be the final outing for Caryn Bonadona and Kaitlyn Poirrier.

 “Obviously, when they came back, just like us, we had different aspirations and goals in mind,” Nicholls coach Robert Podeyn said. “We didn’t achieve those, but we certainly improved and got better and moved the program forward.”

Bonadona, a senior, and Poirrier, a graduate student, are the outliers of a Nicholls team comprised mostly of freshmen and sophomores.

The young squad has struggled, going into the season finale 1-17 overall and 0-9 in the Southland Conference. A win by the Lady Colonels on Friday would be the first Southland victory for the program in five years.

“There have been some really good moments we’ve played in games. We just can’t sustain it for 90 minutes,” Podeyn said of the 2023 season. “Maybe this being that final chapter for those two players and everybody else wanting to send them off, maybe we can finally put it together.”

Nicholls would be putting it together against a Northwestern State team has had mixed results heading into the close of the season. The Demons enter Friday’s game 4-5 in the SLC and 6-10 overall. Northwestern State goes into the Nicholls contest having won its last two games after dropping the previous four.

“Northwestern is a team, if we put it together for 90 minutes, we can beat,” said Podeyn.

The Demons have scored only 13 goals all season. Taylor Spitzer leads the team with four goals. No other player has scored more than two goals.

By comparison, Nicholls has managed eight goals on the season.

Nicholls has given up 66 goals on the season, compared to 23 for Northwestern State.

“Northwestern has a very good goalkeeper,” said Podeyn. “They are a decent team, and they are beatable. Maybe I’m the eternal optimist, but on any given day, if we are playing our game, we are better than every team in our conference, including Lamar. But it’s a matter of we’re young, we’re still learning, and we are missing a few pieces, but I think we’ve still got enough that if we play consistently our game, we can win the game.”

Northwestern goalkeeper Libe Banuelos has started all 16 games, allowing 22 goals, with 73 saves.

“She’s good instinctively,” Podeyn said of Banuelos. “She’s strong in the air. She’s got a voice. She commands the area well, so she has the respect of the defense. They listen to her, and she’s organized. Those are the attributes you look for in a strong goalkeeper. She does all those things and she’s capable of making the big save when they need her to.”

Unanticipated factors, Podeyn said, hampered the team’s progression, especially earlier in the season.

“COVID hit in a big way where the first four weeks of the season, we were missing five or six players every single week,” the Nicholls coach said. “We were giving younger players we really hadn’t anticipated, more time than maybe they were prepared for. We started giving up goals in bunches.”

“When we started to try and get it back, then we started getting the little injuries and things like that,” Podeyn continued. “You get a concussion; you get an ankle. We’re not deep to begin with, but if I can put my starting eleven on the field and get them time to develop chemistry, then we can begin performing a little bit. We still have the problem where we can’t score, but we certainly can create some chances.

“It would be nice to see all those things come together in this final game.”