Five things to know about the South Carolina men’s soccer team
The South Carolina men’s soccer team will move closer to kicking off the 2018 season at 6 p.m. Wednesday when it hosts an exhibition match against Duke at Stone Stadium.
The official season opener is Aug. 24 against Georgetown.
Here are five things to know about the Gamecocks:
1. The Gamecocks are in unfamiliar territory.
Over the course of coach Mark Berson’s four-decade career in Columbia, more than half of his USC teams have entered a season coming off an NCAA Tournament appearance. The 2017 Gamecocks, however, went 6-9-2 and missed the Big Dance for the first time since 2014.
“We’re very disappointed from last year,” Berson said Tuesday. “And I think that disappointment factors into our goals and gives us that edge.”
Carolina, which returns players who recorded 18 of the team’s 21 goals and 16 of 24 assists last season, was picked by the league’s coaches to finish seventh in the nine-team Conference USA.
“We’re expected to make the (NCAA) tournament,” said senior defender Peyton Ericson. “We should be up there, be in the top 25 every week. We have the talent to, we have the facilities to, the resources to.
“It’s almost like we let the athletic program down when we don’t make it. It’s something we should make every year, it’s what we strive for. We’re trying to make Elite Eights, Final Fours and national championship. So that’s the goal for this year — win Conference USA, tournament and regular season, and go on and compete for the national championship.”
2. The Gamecocks are motivated
USC, with a 2-4-2 league record, finished seventh in C-USA in 2017. It’s motivated not to finish that near the cellar again, particularly after the coaches’ poll reveal.
“Conference USA ranked us seventh,” said junior forward Luca Mayr, the team’s lone rep on the preseason All-C-USA team, “and we’re definitely going to prove them wrong and win our conference.”
3. Berson’s back
The only coach in South Carolina men’s soccer history has returned for his 41st season with the Gamecocks. The winningest active coach in the country earned career win No. 500 last November at UAB.
“No,” Berson said when asked if the job ever gets old for him, “because every year is different. Every mix is different. And within the season, every mix is different. You go through peaks and valleys, you go through highs and lows in the season. You have to see how the team and the staff and everybody responds to those challenges.”
Last year was only the sixth time USC has finished with a losing record in the Berson era.
4. After a year away, a top scorer has returned
Bjorn Gudjonsson, who led USC with eight goals in 2016 and was named second-team All-C-USA, was sidelined all of last season with a hip injury.
No one scored more than six goals in his absence.
“Two years ago, he scored goals for us,” Berson said of the senior forward. “We’ll have to see, because he didn’t play for us last year, he hasn’t played this year, so we’ll just have to see.
“But we have a good group of guys surrounding him upfront that I think can do a great job, too.”
Gudjonsson, an Iceland native, traveled to Russia this past summer to watch his homeland compete in its first World Cup.
5. New faces expected to make an impact
USC features 10 new players, including transfers Franco Buhovac (Kansas City Kansas Community College) and Kyle Gurrieri (Syracuse).
Buhovac is a 6-foot-5, 195-pound center back originally from Bosnia and Herzegovina who was an all-region selection at the JUCO level. Gurrieri is a midfielder from New Jersey and former high school All-American.
“Kyle, he’s a huge asset to our team,” Ericson said. “Playing in the ACC, he’s a really good player. He knows what it takes to win. He scraps.”
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Upcoming South Carolina men’s soccer schedule
Aug. 15 – Duke (exhibition), 6 p.m.
Aug. 18 – Gardner-Webb (exhibition), 7 p.m.
Aug. 24 – Georgetown, 7 p.m.
Aug. 27 – Lipscomb, 7 p.m.
Aug. 31 – Clemson, 7 p.m.
This story was originally published August 14, 2018 at 2:04 PM.