The Terrapin men’s soccer team should not be this good this soon.
After winning his second National Championship last season, coach Sasho Cirovski lost all four starters from the nation’s best backline , his leading goal-scorer and his most clutch performer.
A team losing so many crucial elements — in any sport, at any level — just isn’t supposed to keep rolling along when the next season gets going.
That’s really why the Terps’ 1-0 win Friday against then-No. 2 North Carolina was so significant — more so than the nearly 7,000 fans in attendance, the national television audience or the late-game heroics from defender Kevin Tangney.
The win proves Cirovski and his staff have reached rarefied air in college athletics.
The cliché “reloading, not rebuilding” mantra is used entirely too often to describe teams coming off championship seasons. Rarely is the statement true, at least not over the long haul. Today, perhaps you could slap that label on the Southern Cal football team, but few other revenue sport teams have earned the distinction.
Of course, men’s soccer wasn’t the only “reload not rebuild” program playing this past weekend in College Park against the team it beat in the national championship last season. The Terp field hockey team has won three titles in four years and six overall. But field hockey players aren’t leaving early for the pros, and the sport is dominated by teams from the South Atlantic states — Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.
Friday night’s win proved the men’s soccer team has just as much talent as any other contender in the nation and a legitimate shot to win another title this year.
That would be a truly remarkable feat. Even if college soccer isn’t as competitive as football or basketball, there are still prominent programs from coast to coast. And most of those teams boast high-caliber players capable of playing professionally, even if only a select few end up in European super-leagues or international competitions.
Considering how much talent the Terps (5-1-1) lost to Major League Soccer in the offseason, a potential repeat becomes an even bigger accomplishment. Three of those four defenders — A.J. Delagarza, Omar Gonzalez and Rodney Wallace — are now starting in the MLS.
Cirovski has indeed reloaded on the backline, making sure two highly regarded freshmen, Ethan White and Taylor Kemp, were ready to go, while working Tangney into the lineup late last season to get him ready for a dramatically increased role.
And even though Cirovski himself admitted the revamped backline is “ahead of schedule,” the results so far have been similar to the Terps’ start last season, when the team was expected to excel. Of course, last year the team ended up winning a program-record 23 games and allowed just six goals in a season-ending 16-game win streak.
This season, the Terps aren’t quite that good. It’s just not possible, not even for Cirovski, who operates a program as similar as you’re going to find to any professional team in college soccer. (Just ask former midfielder Maurice Edu or ex-goalkeeper Chris Seitz about that.)
The Terps lack the depth of last year’s squad, evidenced by the attack’s failure to keep things flowing after forward Casey Townsend went down with a first-half ankle injury Friday.
But the Terps have already proven they are no fluke. They’ve beat North Carolina and California and dominated Boston College, while also getting a late goal playing down a man to tie at N.C. State.
Even in their one loss, a 2-0 defeat to UCLA in the season opener, the Terps proved themselves by completely controlling the first half before succumbing to fatigue and defensive lapses in the second.
So yes, luck on the injury front will be necessary to make a run at the College Cup. But then again, what championship team hasn’t benefited from good fortune?
The saying goes you create your own luck, and for Cirovski and the Terps it’s true seemingly each season, regardless of who’s on the field.
akraut@umdbk.com
