With another autumn comes another year for soccer at Elizabethtown College. This year’s men’s soccer team was picked to finish fourth for the second straight year. However, with a variety of veteran players and a number of newcomers, Elizabethtown is looking to exceed those expectations and prove the doubters wrong about the talent of their team.
Head coach Skip Roderick is entering his 33rd season and just 15 games shy of 500 for an overall career. Only five other NCAA DIII coaches have completed this milestone and Coach Roderick looks poised to eclipse the 500 career wins in the near future.
Last year’s offense was the product of numerous players getting involved in the scoring helping the Jays top the conference in scoring at 1.67 goals per game. The well rounded offense was comprised of contributions from all around considering that not one player scored more than 10 points on the season. Four players, including veterans; Brent Batory, Martin Fevre and Jeff Light, shared the team lead with three goals apiece. Another four finished with two markers and overall 13 players contributed at least one goal.
Defensively, the Jays were in the middle of the pack ranking fifth with 1.02 goals against average. However, there is familiarity amongst the core backline players entering the 2015 season. All-Landmark First Team pick, Fevre, teams up with three year veteran, Jack Rudy. As well as Shane Votto, who started a career high 13 games last season.
A spring trip to Ireland this past spring rejuvenated the team. Focusing on team bonding created a whole new atmosphere for the team that lost 12 total seniors from just a year ago Fevre emphasized. “We created strong bonds between the team members and younger players stepped up to fill the shoes of the seniors. The team that came back from Ireland was totally different than the team that went there.”
Fevre, also highly optimized commented on his team’s expectations for the upcoming year, “Collectively, we hope to qualify for the conference playoffs and win the Landmark conference. However, we know this will not be an easy task. But it will be a great fight and we will have to go one game at a time.”
The men’s soccer team opens up the year with three straight games at home. Penn State Harrisburg is first up on Tuesday, Sept. 1, at 7 p.m. Then follows the Blue Jay/Red Devil Classic scheduled for Sept. 5-6. Elizabethtown draws the defending conference champions to open Landmark play on Saturday, Sept. 19.