By Andrew Scharff
Every year when the Hofstra men’s soccer team gets its schedule, there is one game which the players and coaches are sure to circle on their calendar-the one against Old Dominion.
“I think they want to beat us as much as we want to beat them. That is why this is such a big rivalry,” team captain Michael Todd said.
“It’s huge. It’s grown and grown. I think they hate us,” senior defender Gary Flood added.
The rivalry between the two teams has been around since 1992 when the schools first played each other (with ODU winning the first ever game 5-0).
They took a six-year break before meeting again in 1998 and next played each other in 2002, when an unfavorable streak started for Hofstra.
“They seem to get the best of us during the regular season,” senior midfielder Arman Osooli said.
From 2002 to present day, Sunday afternoon was the only regular season win and the only ever home win against ODU in program history.
Ever since Hofstra left the America East conference to join the CAA, it has been a two-team conference. ODU and the Pride have met six times the last four seasons.
The Monarchs had won all the regular season games aside from Sunday, but Hofstra has won the past two CAA Championships in which they have had to beat ODU in Virginia.
“Obviously we have a great bit history with them having played [and beat] them in the last two conference championships but they have also beaten us the regular for the past four seasons,” assistant coach Brian Suskiewicz said.
The games between the two teams can’t get any closer. Of the last six games between the two teams, five have been decided by one goal, including last year’s conference championship final where Hofstra beat ODU in the final seconds.
Adrian Papaluca scored the game-winner last year with eight seconds remaining on the clock.
“There were another 10 players on the field and I was the fortunate one to get in,” Papaluca said, who also scored the game-winning goal in the semifinal game in the same tournament.
The year before that it was the same story. The Pride dropped the regular season game to the Monarchs, but they were able to put that behind and beat them in the CAA title game again, as Todd scored the only goal of the game on a breakaway.