Following an impressive season for the North Dakota State women’s soccer team, head coach Mark Cook was excited Wednesday to introduce the incoming class of soccer players who are looking to bring even more talent to the team.

With a talented group, including two twins, former teammates of current NDSU stars and players from as far as California, Cook explained how the large group of incoming freshman will benefit from the current players as well as the graduating seniors.

“We have a really good class coming in,” Cook said. “It’s a rather large class, and the reason for that is we are going to graduate ten seniors next year so we wanted to bring in a bigger group early to develop under a great senior class.”

While the roster will be larger than it has been in some time, having 32 players will benefit each of the players — especially with depth at each position (including four girls fighting for the starting goalkeeper position).

Of the nine incoming freshmen being added to the Bison’s roster, NDSU will have a set of twins in Emily and Rachel Boyer (both of which were team captains for Moundsview High School), a soccer star who doubles as a track standout in Leah Emerson (a five-year letter-winner at Central High School), two players from California including goalie Monica Polgar and Julia Densmore and Mariah Haberle (who led both her team and the state of Minnesota with 30 goals in her senior season).

In addition to these players are local talents, including Lindsey Schweitzer from Mandan, N.D., Anna Triller from Fargo and Laura Powell from Chanhassen, Minnesota.

“We always want to try to find the best kids in North Dakota,” Cook said. “If they can play at this level, we want to try and get them into the Bison green and gold.”

With the addition of each of these players, the Bison look to win the Summit League’s regular season title, as they did last year for the first time since 2009.