By Nick Bond

For all the talk about our football, basketball, lacrosse and softball teams, until last season the most dominant team on campus was our back-to-back-to-back CAA champion men’s soccer team.

Thankfully – for fans of the beautiful game and of Pride athletics – glory days are here again!

Kind of.

I know what you are all saying at home (or, more likely, in your dorm rooms): “The team is 1-2-1 with a draw against STONY BROOK!!!”

Well, first of all, Stony Brook is not the worst team on the planet and – as much as we hate to admit it – Stony Brook has been the proverbial thorn in the Pride’s paw for the past few years. Secondly, the win was a 4-1 drubbing of No.13 Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, not a particularly easy place to play.

Now, I am not saying that the team is going to win a national – or even conference – championship this season, but anyone that has watched a game or glanced at a box score can clearly see that this team is on the precipice of reclaiming former glory.

Freshmen phenomenon Brett Carrington and sophomore sensation Demont Mitchell lead a motley crew of 9 juniors and seniors and 18 sophomores and freshmen with as the pair has combined for 11 points through the team’s first four contests. Carrington has been playing so well that he was recently named the Co-CAA player of the week and a National Top 11 team member by website Top Drawer Soccer, though his success is not particularly surprising considering he is a member of the national team in his home country of Barbados.

This kind of firepower, especially coming from players so young, indicates the team certainly has potential, but they must overcome their relative inexperience if they hope to make noise down the road.

Speaking of the road, their abysmal away record is 2-8-1 in the last two seasons, but it seems possible that they may have turned that corner following their dominating performance at Virginia Tech.

With this in mind, and although they play in a strong conference (with 4 teams ranked in the South Atlantic region Top Ten – Hofstra included), their schedule doesn’t look to be soul-crushingly difficult, and the toughest part – the swing through Virginia which saw them split their games against Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia – is behind them, so it is definitely a reasonable assumption to make that this team will at least make the CAA playoffs, and if the young guns continue to develop at the same pace they have thus far, they have a chance to take the whole thing.