The Muhlenberg Men’s Soccer team’s record has not accurately represented their talent and potential this team has exhibited this season. The team currently stands at a 4-7-2 record, with close losses to top ranked opponents, Rowan and John Hopkins. When asked about the team’s struggles, senior captain, Anthony Carracino said, “Its been tough for sure, just by looking at the difficulty of our schedule. We’ve been able to run and compete with some of the best teams in the country, but the results just haven’t gone the way we would have liked.”
The loss taken at the hands of Rowan has definitely been the most devastating of the season for the Mules, considering it was taken so soon after the double overtime heartbreaker against Hopkins. The men team played well for 89 minutes of the game against the 6th ranked team in the country, only for Rowan to steal the game away at the very end. After the loss, Carracino expressed the team’s resilience by saying, “It definitely hurts being able to experience first-hand just how close our team is to being up there with the top teams. We’ve demonstrated game after game that we can play with them, but it just comes down to closing games out and putting teams away. We still have everything to play for though, with four conference games left so nothing is out of the question just yet.” The team knows that with the proper adjustments, they will be able to close out games and avoid tough losses.
There is no reason to believe that this team won’t improve on their flaws in the future. They are a team composed of predominantly underclassman, who have been taught to learn from their past mistakes. “Persistence is what breeds success. No matter how much adversity this team has faced so far, all of it is meant to prepare them for the future years to come. With how competitive we’ve been with the top teams so far this season, along with the attitude these guys bring on the field day in and day out, the one piece of advice I can give to them is to maintain this ‘Never say die’ attitude we have been trying to instill from the very start,” said Carracino regarding advice he would give to his underclassmen teammates moving forward
With the season coming to an end, the Mules Men’s Soccer team remain optimistic that they can recover from these devastating losses. They need to maintain the same desire and attitude that they have had throughout the entire season, and move on from the tough losses that have been handed to them. With three games remaining on their highly competitive Centennial Conference schedule, and currently in the 8th seed the conference, the team hopes to be in playoff picture by the end of the season. Realistically, it will most likely take the Mules to win all three of the remaining conference matchups, and sneaking into the playoffs may even require some help from other teams who are currently at the top of the league. Regardless, they are not going to let any tough losses derail them from reaching their goals in the final weeks of their fall season.
Additional Reporting by Brandon Kossin.
