MSOC Finishing Regular Season Strong
Nov 04 | Men's Soccer
By Tom Luicci
ScarletKnights.com
PISCATAWAY, N.J. - Even as a .500 soccer team, which the Rutgers men's squad was after nine games this season, the signs were there hinting at better times to come.
"The way we were playing when we were 4-4-1, I knew it was only a matter of time before we started clicking and winning," said redshirt senior defender Mitch Lurie.
What has transpired lately, however, has no doubt exceeded almost everyone's expectations. As the Scarlet Knights finish their regular season on Wednesday at Maryland, they will do so with a chance to earn the Big Ten's regular season title, with a No. 16 ranking in the latest NSCAA Poll and riding a seven-game winning streak that is the program's longest since 1997.
"I've been in this now as a coach for almost 20 years and as a player for a lot longer and you just feel a vibe and an aura around a team and I think this team has that," said head coach Dan Donigan.
At 11-4-1 overall, Rutgers has already reached its highest win total since 2003. For the Scarlet Knights to earn at least a share of the school's first Big Tken regular-season title in any sport, as well as the No. 1 seed for the Big Ten Tournament, they need a combination of a victory over Maryland and an Ohio State loss or tie against Michigan (also Wednesday night).
"It's a huge opportunity for us," said senior midfielder Mitch Taintor. "At the beginning of the year I think a lot of people wrote us off. They had us projected seventh or eighth (out of nine teams) in the Big Ten because we had a rough first year in the league last year.
"It's unbelievable the way things have changed. It just shows as long as we believe we don't need anybody else to believe. And everybody on this team knows that we have what it takes and we feel right now that we can beat anybody."
Donigan, whose team is now the highest ranked of any Big Ten school, said the combination of a challenging early schedule and a dependence on youth and newcomers led to the slow start record-wise. Time has changed that dramatically.
"We have such a small window to prepare in preseason. The guys get here in the middle of August and the first game is the end of August," he said. "It's a very small window to prepare and it takes a transition for some of these guys. We've had some very young kids contributing. A Brian Hawkins, even Miles Hackett and Jason Wright and Sheldon Mckoy coming into the mix with a Brandon Tetro and a Thomas Dovell. A guy like Ahmad Faheem hadn't gotten a lot of touches.
"We had a lot of new pieces. Mitch Lurie and Tyler Morris are both new pieces to this team. They had to sit out last year (as transfers). It was just a little bit of a transition period. And we don't have an easy schedule. We play a very difficult schedule. The more we got used to each other and had the consistency with one another, learning our strengths and weaknesses, that allowed us to perform at a better level."
In addition to featuring the Big Ten's leading scorer in Jason Wright (13 goals) and the league's top offense (36 goals), Rutgers has excelled at the defensive end during its recent run of success, with shutouts in five of the past six games.
"Defensively we've really kind of locked down and helped out and we've gotten good numbers back behind the ball," Donigan said. "I've always told our guys that the offense will take care of itself and we'll get our chances because I think we're pretty talented going forward. But we've got to take care of the defensive side of the ball.
"We've really focused in on making sure we get good numbers back and helping each other out. That has given us opportunities to stay in games and compete and has given us a chance to win."
The timing for all of this couldn't be better with post-season play approaching.
"I think everything is coming together at a good time," said Lurie. "We've had the same starting lineup most of the season. We're playing the same way. We've stuck to our game plan and I think we've all evolved within the coach's tactics and it's starting to pay off.
"The past few years when we haven't had a lot of success you'd go into a game thinking `Are we going to play well this game? Are we going to win today?' Now we expect to win. We've created a winning culture and I think that's really helping the team morale in practice. Everyone is excited all the time. Everyone is trying different things, which is good. It really helps the creativity amongst the guys."
Donigan isn't downplaying what it would mean for his program to grab at least a share of the Big Ten regular season title, either.
"It's very significant, especially in our second year in the league after we were so disappointed for what we did last year (finishing 6-12-1 overall and 1-6-1 in conference play)," he said. "We knew we had the ability to do this. It was just a matter of maybe getting a lucky bounce here or a lucky break there and creating quality chances in a game and finishing them. We've got a couple of special players on the offensive side and we've locked down defensively. That tends to make for a pretty good mix of 11."
