The commencement of the 2024 fall NJCAA sports season is quickly approaching, and head women's and men's soccer coach Ken DeCook is kicking things off for Rustler athletics with a pair of challenging preseason matches against region 18 opponents for both of his squads.

"We're going to use them as learning experiences and teaching moments. We're going to go play everybody to see who can actually play at this level," Coach DeCook said about his plan for the preseason bouts. "We're playing the College of Southern Idaho, which is a first year program. Their coach spent the entire summer in Europe recruiting."

The Rustlers will take on CSI Thursday, August 22nd at Jackson High School. The women's team is geared up for a 1 p.m. kickoff and the men's game will get under way at 3 p.m. 

They will then travel to Salt Lake City on Saturday, August 24th, where both teams will take the pitch against the Salt Lake Community College Bruins, with women at 1 p.m. and men at 3 p.m. 

"(SLCC) is always ranked in the top three or five in the country, last year when we played them he only played his top 13 players." DeCook recounted from the previous year's matchup, "He didn't even touch his bench for the most part. We learned a lot, we made changes from that, and that's what we hope to do again this year which will strengthen us and make us better players going into region 9 play."

With the 2024 fall sports season ramping up the next couple weeks, we encourage you to refer back to the rustlerathletics.com website everyday for more information on home and away fall sports competitions, score and standing updates, and releases involving your Rustler Athletics teams!