By Doug Bonjour

Home-field advantage in all sports; crucial to a team’s success and an added boost of intimidation for the best competitors. Feeding off a raucous crowd can build any team’s confidence and shoot down the positive feelings of the visitor. There is nothing more intimidating is it than when a home crowd can make a venue feel electric and allow the home team to feed off the multitude of emotions.

At the Hofstra Soccer Stadium, the electricity may not match that of any basketball or football venue, but it surely can help push the blue and yellow to victory.

After the Pride’s first home win this year, which came on Sept. 14 against San Diego, senior midfielder Ray Hassett credited the fans for their showing, while expressing the joy of winning at home.

“The fans helped a great deal. Playing in front of our home field; playing at UConn was a great thing with the crazy fans, but coming home and winning in front of our fans was just what we needed,”

Home has been friendly to the Pride both this year and in the past. Hofstra currently holds a 3-1-1 home record in 2007 and over the past three seasons, the Pride has been dominant as any while playing in front of their home fans, recording an 18-4-2 record.

But unfortunately for the Pride, not all games can be played at home. Playing on the road has not equaled much fun for Hofstra, as they currently hold an abysmal 0-7-1 while playing in other venues.

“You’re playing on different surfaces, you’re traveling, there are good things and bad things,” explained Head Coach Richard Nuttall.

The one positive Nuttall suggested about playing away from home is that it “can be easier to concentrate.”

Lack of concentration or not, finding points on the road has seemingly become a recurrent problem for the Pride in the past year and a half. The team has managed just a 2-12-3 record, which obviously presents a far cry from the overall success that the team has had in advancing through the Colonial Athletic Conference.

Following the team’s 5-1 loss at Virginia Commonwealth, Nuttall discussed his team’s troubles away from home.

“The teams we’re playing against have been excellent. I think it’s a multitude of factors. But we’re just not playing good on the road,” he said.

Yet amongst the road losses, Nuttall can find a positive.

“The good news is, we’ve won 3 of 5 games at home.”

Ray Hassett failed to continue streaking with disappointing back-to-back conference losses on the road over the weekend. (Kyle Martel)