The men’s soccer team practiced to an interesting soundtrack yesterday afternoon—sporadic blasts of mediocre southern rock played through the recently added speakers on Kehoe Field. While the discord wasn’t exactly conducive to instruction, head coach Brian Wiese was more than happy to make concessions for the sake of the venue.
“It’s one of the best home field advantages in the league,” he said. “It’s one of the few places in the nation where you have that kind of intimacy between fans and players, and we draw a lot of energy from it.”
The audio check was a last minute preparation for the team’s first regular season home game against Davidson on Friday.
The Hoyas (2-0-0) have already garnered attention this year after taking California by storm last weekend with two shutout victories en route to the Cal State Northridge Tournament Championship. The Hoyas have no intention of letting the Wildcats (1-1-0) tarnish their perfect record.
“We don’t expect to do anything but win,” senior forward Peter Grasso, who was named Offensive MVP in the Northridge Tournament, said. “Our team goal was to only have one or two losses the entire year at home, so we don’t want to start off with a loss.”
Davidson’s 4-14-1 record in 2007 doesn’t exactly make the team look like an obvious threat to spoil the Hoyas’ home opener, nor does the 5-1 drubbing they suffered at the hands of Charlotte last week. But the Wildcats’ schedule always features ACC powerhouses like Duke and Wake Forest—which contributed to their unattractive record—and the team bounced back from the Charlotte defeat to blank a solid Marshall team, 2-0. There’s a lot more to Davidson than meets the eye, as Wiese and his team are well aware.
“We don’t know a huge amount about them, but we know they will come up ready to play,” Wiese said. “They have a few guys there that we know and they can hurt us if we don’t take care of things.”
Wiese expressed concern about playing a weekday home game, noting that some of the team’s worst performances last season were under similar circumstances. The Hoyas have six such games this season, but hope to overcome midweek flatness with a little help from the fans.
The team is expecting a big Friday afternoon turnout for the home opener. But even if Hoya fans don’t show up in force, Kehoe has its new speakers to pick up the slack. Kick-off is set for 3:00 p.m.
