By Chris Vaccaro

Stony Brook, which finished last season 4-13-1, has a new head coach in Cesar Markovic, and is playing a whole new style of soccer. Its rejuvenated program is 4-1 now, and the team has started well in its coaches first season. Although it doesn’t seem that the Pride would have any historical edge over Stony Brook, the all-time record between these two teams is now 11-4-3 in the Pride’s favor. Last season the Pride beat the Seawolves 3-0 on the road. Their first meeting was in 1966 and resulted in a 2-1 for the Pride, one of only two wins for the entire season.

STAT OUTLOOKGoalie Matthias Gumbrecht has posted a .667 save percentage and a 1.40 goals against average in five games this year. His two shutouts were the only two wins for the Pride so far, and he’s made 14 saves.

SHOTS GALOREIn the last three games the Pride has out shot its opponents 56-25, its most recent being 18-8 against Stony Brook, and 17-10 against Pittsburgh. Last season it ended the year with 258 total shots, if it keeps the current pace it will have more than 300 by season’s end. Michael Todd leads the team with 22 shots so far this season.

FIELD IS FLOODEDSophomore Gary Flood played all 90 minutes in the Stony Brook game, and has never checked out of a contest in his 23 game career with the Pride. The Long Island native has been stellar on defense thus far and has the work ethic a player must have to compete at this level.

CAA FAN’S POLLA poll asking who will win the CAA Men’s Soccer Championship this season picked by fans hasn’t turned out in the Pride’s favor. From 415 votes only six percent picked the

Pride to take it all, while UNC Wilmington was on top with 18 percent of the votes.