Men's Soccer

Men's Soccer Ranked Eighth Regionally in NESJ Preseason Poll

Men's Soccer Ranked Eighth Regionally in NESJ Preseason Poll
Posted: Aug 31, 2022

STANDISH, Maine – The New England Soccer Journal (NESJ) 2022 men's soccer preseason poll has been released and Saint Joseph's College is ranked eighth in the region.

Reigning national champion Connecticut College sits atop the NESJ rankings while Amherst College, Tufts University, Middlebury College, and MIT round out the preseason top five. Babson College and Wesleyan College are listed ahead of the Monks in sixth and seventh, respectively, while UMass.-Boston and Gordon College round out the top 10.

Led by fourth-year Head Coach Will Pike '11, Saint Joseph's looks to contend for their fifth Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Championship in the last six seasons this fall. The Monks return seven starters from a 2021 side that went 16-2-2 overall with a 12-0-0 record in conference play en route to earning the top seed in the GNAC tourney.

Graduate Austin Ward (Exeter, N.H.) leads the Monks' group of returners after scoring eight goals with five assists last fall while sophomores Gus Ford (Falmouth, Maine) and Rion Dos Santos (São Paulo, Brazil) will see increased roles after posting fine freshman seasons a year ago.

In the 2021 conference playoffs, the Monks defeated #8 Colby-Sawyer (3-0) and #5 University of Saint Joseph (3-1) to advance to the GNAC Championship game for the fifth-consecutive season. St. Joe's tipped #2 Norwich, 1-0 in double-overtime, in the league title bout on November 6th to earn the program's sixth GNAC crown.

With the GNAC's automatic qualifier into the 2021 NCAA DIII National Tournament, Saint Joseph's faced New York University in the opening round in a contest played at Connecticut College on November 13th. The Monks scored twice in the opening 18 minutes and held a 2-1 lead with 16 minutes left when the game was halted due to lightning. The decision was made to resume the game several hours later at Conn College's lighted turf field. NYU tied the game with just over a minute left and netted the winner with 39 seconds left in the first overtime to end the Monks' season.

Saint Joseph's kicks off the 2022 season with a non-conference home game versus University of Southern Maine on Thursday, September 1st. Kick-off is set for 4:00 PM.

 

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2022 NESJ Preseason Rankings

  1. Connecticut College
    2. Amherst
    3. Tufts
    4. Middlebury
    5. MIT
    6. Babson
    7. Wesleyan
    8. Saint Joseph's (Maine)
    9. UMass Boston
    10. Gordon

 

 

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Founded in 1912 by the Sisters of Mercy in Portland, Maine, Saint Joseph’s College is Maine’s Catholic liberal arts college in the Mercy tradition. We are inclusive of all faiths, including no faith. The 474-acre campus, located on the shore of Sebago Lake in Standish, Maine offers more than 40 undergraduate programs and a Division III athletic program to a population of approximately 1,000 on-campus students. A pioneer of distance education since the 1970s, the College also provides online certificates and undergraduate and graduate degrees for thousands more working adults who reside in more than 20 other countries. In 2015 the College was selected by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to receive its Community Engagement Classification, highlighting the College’s focus on community service throughout its mission and daily interactions within local, regional, and global communities. In 2018, Princeton Review recognized SJC as one of its “Green Colleges” for its sustainability initiatives. Learn more at www.sjcme.edu.

 

The Official Athletics Site of Saint Joseph's College of Maine