Aug. 30, 2001
Today's Matchup: The Stony Brook men's soccer team opens its 2001 campaign against New York Institute of Technology today at 4 p.m. The game is the season opener for both teams.
Series History: The Seawolves lead the all-time series 9-7-2 and won the most recent meeting with the Bears, 3-1, in 1998.
In that game, three different Seawolves scored and SBU used a comfortable 2-0 halftime lead to ease to their third victory of the season.
Season Openers: Stony Brook will attempt to win its season opener for the second straight year today. Last year's 1-0 win over Boston College was the Seawolves' first season opening win in five seasons. Before that victory, SBU had not opened a season 1-0 since 1994, when they defeated Plattsburgh 1-0.
In the win over BC, Jamie Gaither netted a rebound of an initial shot by Everett Watts in the 12th minute and Stony Brook held on for the win. Dan Ferrin made six saves to register the shutout in his first collegiate start.
Conference Rankings: Stony Brook was selected to finish sixth in the America East Conference preseason poll, the conference announced last week. The Seawolves were one of five teams to receive first-place votes in balloting by the head coaches.
Defending conference champion Vermont was selected as the preseason favorite to repeat, receiving four of a possible 11 first-place votes and 100 points overall. Hoftra was a close second with two first-place votes and 96 points. Northeastern University, which won the conference regular-season in 2000, was selected third, and Towson University, the only team to appear in each of the last three America East Championships, was fourth. Boston University rounded out the top five.
The top six teams in the conference will advance to the America East Championship with the winner of the tournament receiving an automatic bid to the NCAA College Cup.
Preseason Honors: Sophomore Dan Ferrin, who started all 18 games and set a new school record for shutouts for the Seawolves last season, was named honorable mention preseason All-America by Collegesoccer.com.
Ferrin registered a goals-against average of 0.81 in his debut season with Stony Brook and recorded 10 shutouts. Named to the SoccerAmerica All-Freshman Team, Ferrin also received All-Atlantic Soccer Conference honors.
Named first-team preseason All-America were Bryheem Hancock (Sr., GK, Connecticut), Lee Morrison (Sr., D, Stanford), Chris Gbandi (Sr., D, Connecticut), Oguchi Onyewu (So., D, Clemson), Bryn Ritchie (Sr., D, Washington), Carl Bussey (Sr., M, SMU), Ryan Coiner (Jr., M, San Diego), Gavin Glinton (Sr., M, Bradley), Mohamed Fahim (Sr., F, SMU), John Barry Nusum (Sr., F, Furman), and Jack Jewsbury (Sr., F, St. Louis).
Lofty Goals in 2001: Stony Brook welcomes back seven starters from last year's 12-4-2 squad as the Seawolves prepare to open competition in the America East Conference. SBU competed in a Division I conference for the first time last season as a member of the Atlantic Soccer Conference, but a key ingredient was missing from that league--an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament.
Now the Seawolves have the chance to contend for not only a conference title, but also an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
"Playing for not only a conference championship but to get into the NCAA Tournament is big-time motivation," head coach Scott Dean said. "We've played some of these teams before and we know we can compete with them. But it's a strong conference . . . We are definitely optimistic but we can't be overconfident."
Last year's Seawolves took a lot of opponents, not to mention national media and fans, by storm with their success. Stony Brook cracked the Top 25 four times in 2000 and was named Team of the Week for its torrid 6-0 start. While this year's squad won't have the element of surprise in its arsenal, Dean still approaches the fall with excitement and anticipation.
"A lot of teams know who we are now," Dean said. "But just the opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament will motivate our team. They know it's not an easy task to get there, and they are all under the notion that no one will be surprised by us. But we know if we come out every game and play how we are capable of playing, the NCAA Tournament is very much within our grasp."
News and Notes: Junior Kevin Cameron scored both goals in the Seawolves' 2-0 exhibition win over Southampton on Tuesday . . . Cameron, sophomore Dan Ferrin and senior Johan Thomsson have been named team captains for 2001.
