Coach Sasho Cirovski yells commands when the Terps played to a 0-0 draw with UMBC at Ludwig Field on Sep, 5 2014.
Sasho Cirovski sat in front of a microphone in the Byrd Stadium press box Tuesday afternoon, fielding questions from the media about the Terrapins men’s soccer team’s upcoming season.
The coach is aware of the questions surrounding his program, as several key performers from last season’s conference championship team are gone. Midfielders Alex Shinsky and Dan Metzger, who both earned nods to the All-Big Ten team, have graduated. And star goalkeeper Zack Steffen left school early to pursue a professional career in Germany.
Cirvoski is still optimistic, though. As he spoke to reporters, midfielder Mael Corboz sat to his right, and defender Alex Crognale sat to his left. The coach is confident in his returners and is excited to see how his 11-player freshman class performs.
The roster might look different, but the message around Ludwig Field is the same: the Terps expect to be competing late in the season.
“We know that we might have some growing pains,” Cirovski said. “But we feel very, very confident that when’s it’s all said and done by the end of the year, this group of players will once again contend for championships.”
Cirovski has put together grueling early-season schedules in recent years, and he didn’t deviate from that in 2015. The No. 13 Terps open the campaign Friday against No. 4 Notre Dame at the adidas/IU Credit Union Classic in Bloomington, Indiana, before welcoming top-ranked UCLA to Ludwig Field on Sept. 4 in their home opener.
Competing against top-tier teams at the beginning of the year gives the Terps an accurate representation of where they stand on college soccer’s totem poll, Cirovski said. His players also welcome the challenge.
“Playing these teams early gives us a taste of what we expect to see later in the season,” Crognale said. “It gives us a good gauge of where we are at and what we need to look to improve on moving forward.”
The Terps hope to answer a number of question marks as they wade through the tough nonconference slate. For one thing, the squad will need to find an adequate replacement for Steffen, who played every minute during the past two seasons.
Cirovski said goalkeeper Cody Niedermeier, a redshirt junior who has suffered two season-ending injuries in three years, will start against the Fighting Irish. The veteran coach also said freshman Dayne St. Clair will see time in goal during the first month of the season.
Defender Mikey Ambrose leaving the program for the Austin Aztex of the USL also leaves a significant hole. Freshman Diego Silva, a Buenos Aires native, is expected to fill Ambrose’s spot at left back.
“He’s a nice combination of a little Mikey Ambrose and a little Taylor Kemp with his own little Argentinian taste,” Cirovski said. “He’s going to be a fun player for our fans to watch.”
And while the midfield loses Metzger, Corboz remains optimistic.
“We have some freshman who can step in right away and play, and we have some transfers who can do the same,” said Corboz, who led the team in scoring last season with 10 goals. “We might have to move a few pieces around … but I think we’ll be on par with last year, if not better [in the midfield.]”
This certainly isn’t the first time the Terps have been forced to move forward without key players, so Cirovski isn’t nervous. In fact, he believes his team has the potential to do something special.
“We hope this year that we can help make the Big Ten the premier conference in the country,” Cirovski said.
