The New Season
Nov 17 | Men's Soccer
By Tom Luicci
ScarletKnights.com
PISCATAWAY, N.J. - It wasn't long after Rutgers had its name called during Monday's NCAA Tournament men's soccer selection show that head coach Dan Donigan had his post-season message ready for his team.
Losses in two of the past three games suddenly didn't matter, he said, because this team had the potential to do what the 2011 squad did - even if JP Correa, the only player to be part of both squads, could fully appreciate the reference.
"I'll just refer back to the last time we were in the NCAA Tournament," Donigan said. "We had a first round game against Colgate. We were able to get by them. Then we went to Boston College and beat those guys on penalty kicks to get into the Sweet 16. We're just looking forward to Thursday and taking care of that game first. That's all that matters right now."
Rutgers, 12-6-1 overall and enjoying its best season in 14 years, drew LIU Brooklyn (11-5-4) as its first round opponent on Thursday at Yurcak Field. The winner moves on to play Akron at Akron.
That game will also erase the final vestige from last year's 6-12-1 campaign, making the turnaround complete.
"Any time you can make it to the NCAA Tournament it's huge," said senior Mitch Lurie, a Second-Team All-Big Ten selection. "It was a total team effort. It's huge for Rutgers as a school that both soccer programs made the NCAA Tournament and that our team had a huge turnaround. It shows what one year can do when everyone is on the same page and everyone goes out and battles every night."
Though the Scarlet Knights were eliminated from the Big Ten Tournament in a 4-0 loss to Ohio State, neither that game nor the 3-1 loss in the regular-season finale at Maryland in a battle for a potential Big Ten regular season title, will have an impact on this team going forward, Donigan said.
Some may have wondered about Rutgers' prospects because of those defeats. Donigan prefers to believe this team will re-capture the form that saw it win seven-straight games from Oct. 6 to Oct. 31.
"You have to have a short memory with those losses," said Donigan, the Big Ten Coach of the Year. "The Ohio State game is in the past. We can't punish ourselves for advancing in the Big Ten Tournament. We've just got to put that out of our minds. Right now it's a brand new season. Everyone is 0-0. It's a brand new start.
"It doesn't matter where you're seeded or if you're on the road. It's 90 minutes of soccer between the white lines. You square up against the other 11 guys and that's it. We know we can do anything. We can get back to the Sweet 16, we can get to the College Cup with this team. It's a very capable group."
Senior midfielder Mitchell Taintor, who will experience the NCAA Tournament for the first time, said this team has shown enough potential during the season - compiling the program's highest win total since 2001 - that anything is possible now.
"I've been here all four years and it hasn't been the smoothest ride so it means a lot to make the NCAA Tournament, especially as a senior in my last year," he said. "Hopefully we can do something with it and make a run."
Despite that confidence, though, Taintor was on edge until he heard Rutgers officially called as an at-large selection, recalling the disappointment his grandfather, Joseph Morrone, experienced in his final season as head coach at Connecticut (where he coached Donigan).
"You never know what the selection committee thinks," he said. "My grandfather was a coach and he said they didn't make the NCAA Tournament in his last season when he felt they should have. So I was kind of thinking about that in the back of my head. We felt we should have made and we did make it, but there's always that seed of doubt if you don't win your conference tournament."
Donigan said the struggles this group has gone through to reach this point makes them appreciate it even more.
"We've been through a lot of ups and downs the past couple of years," he said. "I think the leaders of this team, they want to get rid of the fact we haven't performed well the past couple of years. They're better than that and they know they are."
It's also a chance for this senior class to leave an indelible mark on the program.
"There's not really much of a legacy unless you do something," said Taintor.
