New intramural soccer very popular

12_04_27_soccerIndoor soccer this fall is so popular, every slot on every team was filled before the season started, said Matthew Wright.

Wright said this is the first semester he has tried to do indoor soccer, which isn’t really indoor soccer at all.

“This isn’t 100 percent traditional indoor soccer, because in indoor soccer you would have walls to play off of, and there’s no out of bounds,” he said. “Here, it’s a combination between indoor soccer and futsal, which is an indoor game that’s played on a basketball court-type surface.”

While Wright said the game of futsal is soccer at its core, there are some differences.

“It’s essentially soccer,” he said. “When the ball goes out, instead of throwing it in, you would kick it in. But, it’s really just soccer on a smaller size. It’s four-on-four and then each team has a goalie. But besides that, it’s soccer. There’s corner kicks, there’s goalies, etc.”

Indoor soccer has been added to the lineup of intramural sports due to soccer’s popularity.

“There’s always been a lot of people on campus that wanted us to do soccer,” he said. “I just tried to do indoor this year because we already do outdoor flag football in the fall.

“We just had the indoor space to do it during the cold months, and I knew it would be popular. Soccer is getting more popular every year.”

Wright said the proof is in the pudding when it comes to soccer’s popularity on campus, because the fall season of futsal is already filled up with teams.

“We have six teams signed up and each team has eight people on it,” he said. “Spots for teams are totally full this semester.

“We limited the teams to eight because we don’t want people coming out just to sit on the bench since there’s only four people playing at a time.”

Wright said he is thinking about having another futsal season next semester due to the overwhelming popularity.

“I’m going to take a look into next semester and maybe a lot more teams,” he said. “Right now this season is from 2 to 5 p.m. on Fridays, so next semester we might add another hour so we can have more people.”

For more information about intramural indoor soccer or any of the other intramural sports on campus, contact Wright at 405-682-1611, ext. 7684, or at matthew.j.wright@occc.edu. The Recreation and Fitness center can be contacted at 405-682-7860.

Leave comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *.