Aug. 15, 2008

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - The 21st-ranked Wake Forest women's soccer team opens up the exhibition portion of its schedule on Sunday afternoon as it hosts Appalachian State at 1 p.m.

"We're anxious to play against another team," head coach Tony da Luz said. "We've been working on a lot of very specific, position-oriented exercises. It'll be good to gauge our progress against another opponent."

Wake Forest will close out its first week of practices on Saturday. Coach da Luz is pleased with the progress his team is making and hopes to see more in the exhibition on Sunday.

"Practice has been going really well," da Luz said. "Everybody has come in at a good level of fitness and they're competing well. I'm really pleased. We're probably further along from an attacking standpoint than we were last year."

The Deacons enter the season ranked 21st in the preseason poll released Tuesday by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America and adidas. Wake Forest returns eight starters and 17 letterwinners from last year's team that advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the 12th consecutive year. The team also features nine newcomers.

Appalachian State is coming off a 10-6-3 record in the 2007 season, including a 4-5-1 mark in Southern Conference action. The Mountaineers return nine starters and 16 letterwinners from last year's team, and welcome 14 newcomers to the 2008 team. Senior Casey Cleary led ASU with nine goals last season and junior goalkeeper Emma White posted a 1.01 goals against average.

"Appalchian State will be a good test for us," da Luz added. "They are a pretty athletic team. We are just going to worry about our own team and on our players and go from there."

A recap and stats from Sunday's exhibition opener will be available on the official Web site of Wake Forest athletics, wakeforestsports.com.

-WakeForestSports.com-