2008 Season Outlook

Balance and Experience Should Lead Wooster Back Up NCAC Standings

Midfielder Nate Florian is one of six seniors on Wooster's 2008 team.

Most would agree that there is no substitute for experience, when it comes to success in college athletics. The College of Wooster men’s soccer team learned that the hard way last fall, as it endured an uncharacteristic .500 season (7-7-2) and tie for sixth-place in the North Coast Athletic Conference (3-4-2) in large part to fielding just three seniors.

Now, the Fighting Scots, with 18 veterans who were regulars in the lineup last year, including nine starters, expect to return to the form that saw them compile a winning percentage above .750 over a five-season stretch from 2002-06 (59-14-12; .765).

To improve, Wooster will likely have to increase its offensive output, as the Scots are coming off a season, in which they scored 15 total goals and were shutout six times. The attack will be balanced with a number of capable scorers, including seniors Brenton Allen, Chris Chapman, Nate Florian, and Nick Waychoff, juniors Davis Bates, Chase Beach, Scott Buckwald, Trevor Day, and Karl Ruter, and sophomore Brian Holmes among others. Ruter, a midfielder, leads the way with 22 career points, scoring the majority of his 10 goals on free kicks, while starting every match the last two seasons have been forwards Waychoff and Buckwald en route to tallying 19 (7 goals, 5 assists) and 12 points (4 goals, 4 assists), respectively.

Ruter and Allen, another two-year starter who has chipped in three goals and an assist over his career, will likely anchor a deep midfield group. Day, who started and paced the team with three assists last fall, is expected to make a significant impact there as are Florian, Bates, and Beach, who have 46, 31, and 25 games played during their respective careers.

Jay Keener is one of Wooster’s top returning players overall, having been voted a second-team all-NCAC defender last season when he was a cornerstone of a unit that yielded one goal or less in 10 of 16 matches. Now a junior, he’ll lead this year’s backfield, which also includes the likes of seniors Aaron Oster-Beal and Garrett Dennett, who possess 41 and 26 respective games worth of experience, as well as junior Josh Madson and sophomore standouts John Bain and Ryan Schlothauer, the latter of whom started as a freshman.

In goal, Patryk Tenorio and Jordan O’Boyle split time last season as first-years, with one playing the first half and the other the second of most every match. Statistically, Tenorio posted a .860 save percentage and 0.89 goals against average and O’Boyle was at .793 and 1.58, and the two sophomores could again see equal time during 2008.

Ten newcomers, including a transfer, are joining the squad and will vie for playing time as well.