Marquette men’s soccer looks a little different this season compared to last. Not only has a new head coach been brought on, but 45 percent of the roster are new additions to the Golden Eagle family.
After completing 18 seasons, head coach Louis Bennett announced his decision last November to step away from the program. This meant that a national search for a new coach was underway.
In came David Korn, Marquette’s seventh head coach for the team. Korn had previously coached at Maryville University, a Division II school, for eight years before taking the opportunity at Marquette. In his time at Maryville, he had led the team to three Great Lakes Valley Conference tournament championships and a GLVC regular season championship in 2022.
When he was first contacted by Marquette, Korn said he was attracted to the community that the program had.
“I think the culture and the people were something I was drawn to,” Korn said. “It makes it really exciting to get to go to work with those folks and feel supported as a coach.”
After getting hired, Korn had two days before the transfer portal closed. He only had a day and a half to meet with the current players before they were off for winter break and had one full-team meeting.
He felt that due to the limited time that he had to get to know the team, it was beneficial to bring in two transfers from Maryville. Graduate student forward Tim Smith and sophomore midfielder Clayton Hamler were those players who followed Korn to Milwaukee for the opportunity to play at the Division I level.
“We felt like they fit in with the team,” Korn said. “We knew their personality, they add to our culture, [and] because you’re bringing in people, you’re bringing in their habits, their experiences, and that’s hard to learn in a short span.”
At the beginning of his senior season, Smith had aspired to transfer out of Maryville and play at the next level. Without knowing that his coach was considering a different job, he entered the portal. A week later, Korn had made the announcement he would be leaving.
After Korn had met with the Golden Eagles, he told Smith that there was an opportunity awaiting him at Marquette.
“Of course, I love coach Korn, so I was going to take that,” Smith said.
Players from all over slowly started to fill the roster. Korn believed that by not rushing the signing process, it would allow them to find the right fit for the team.
There are now 15 new players and 18 returners who make up the 2024 roster.
Among those 15 is Adam Mekrami, a first-year forward who traveled from Sweden to play for the Golden Eagles. Over the past few months, he said he feels that the team has become a family, which helps them set team goals for the season.
“To be able to win, we need to be doing this together,” Mekrami said. “It’s important to be on the same page to progress as a team.”
In Marquette’s season opener against Drexel, fans gave the newcomers a huge welcome as they were able to make it the largest crowd the Valley has seen since 2014 with 1,787 attendees.
For Smith, he believed that it was the biggest crowd he had ever played for in his career, and Mekrami said he felt that the team was able to feed off of the crowd’s energy to clinch the win.
As non-conference play comes to a close and Big East play begins, the team hopes to push to achieve their goals to compete hard.
“The goal is we want to improve every game, we want to win every single game,” Korn said. “I think we have the quality to do that and we have to do it in a lot of different ways.”
This story was written by Raquel Ruiz. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @RaquelRuizMU.
