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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern men’s soccer team will kick off the 2012-13 NSU athletic calendar with a match against the Ave Maria Gyrenes Thursday at 6 p.m. The Sharks will follow up with a match against the Carson Newman Eagles on Saturday at 6 p.m. Both matches will be played at the NSU Soccer Complex.
Thursday night’s match will serve as Alumni Night for the men’s soccer team, with a party scheduled at the Flight Deck inside the Don Taft University Center following the match.
The men’s soccer team had a complete makeover this offseason, with only 11 returners on the 29-man roster. Those returners will be looking for redemption in 2012 after a lackluster campaign last year, when the team went 4-11-1. The Sharks broke a streak of six-straight Sunshine State Conference Tournament appearances, the longest active streak in the conference at the time.
However, most of the team did not experience the pitfalls of the 2011 campaign. The NSU coaching staff brought in 18 newcomers, 16 of which are freshman, from seven different countries. With so few returners, almost all of the newcomers have had a chance to compete for a starting job in the preseason.
With Ave Maria competing in NAIA and Carson Newman hailing from Tenn., neither match will count towards the Sharks’ regional record, which will determine whether or not NSU reaches the NCAA Tournament. Despite this, NSU will look to use the opening slate as a launching pad towards early success. Two wins would be a step in the right direction, as the Sharks have not started 2-0 since the 2008 season.
The two matches will serve as the first leg of a six-match homestand. The homestand is the longest streak of home games to start a season in program history. The hope is to replicate the team’s 2007 start, when the Sharks won seven-straight games to start the season and achieved a top-five national ranking. The 2007 team also had a slew of talented newcomers, with All-Region talents Aly Hassan and Craig Heenighan beginning their collegiate careers that season.
History doesn’t show much for these two matchups, as the Sharks have never faced Ave Maria and have faced Carson Newman twice. NSU is 2-0 against the Eagles and have not conceded a goal in either match. Last season, the Sharks faced Carson Newman at a neutral site and won an overtime match, 1-0.
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