USD Men's Soccer 1996

1996 Season Preview

1

., .,

The USO men's soccer team will begin the 1996 season with an eagerness to return to post season competition. Last year, the Toreros season ended on a bitter note with an opening round loss to Santa Clara in the NCAA playoffs. This season, USO will look to erase that playoff memory while defending the West Coast Conference crown. In 1996, the Toreros return seven starters, including All– WCC First Team member James Wang and WCC Freshman of the Year Leighton O'Brien. O'Brien earned second team West Region All American honors after totaling six goals and eight assists in his rookie year. Wang is the key to the Toreros defense and has the most experience on the team playing in 55 career games. Lafe Vittitoe and Levi Parker also return scoring 25 points between them. Vittitoe played in all 19 games while Parker's season was cut short by injury. Once again there will be a battle in the nets between Carlos Castellanos and Joe Panian. The two juniors split time last year with Castellanos starting in nine games and Panian get– ting the nod in ten. Castellanos began the '95 season as the starting goaltender with Panian talcing over midway through after shutting out Butler and being named WCC Player of the Week. Castellanos came back to start the final two games of the year and recorded hi s second shutout against Loyola Marymount in the conference finale. Head coach Seamus McFadden begins his eighteenth sea– son at the helm of the Torero soccer program and is a four-time WCC Coach of the Year recipient including the past two sea– sons. He is the winningest coach in the WCC over the past four years with 58 wins and has guided USO to the NCAA tournament five of the past six years. The Toreros have twelve newcomers on the '96 roster in– cluding nine All-League selections, five AII-CIF First Team members and two All-State picks. Key newcomers for the Toreros will be transfer Nicholas Kalafatich and freshman twins Erin and Brian O'Connor. Kalafatich scored 5 goals and 13 points for Seattle Pacific last season and will try to fill the void left by Guillermo Jara, the Toreros all-time leader in goals, as– sists and points. The O'Connor brothers are the second set of twins to play in the WCC and will add depth at the midfield and backfield positions. Brian is an AII-CIF First Team selection while scoring 12 goals and recording 18 assists for San Pasqual last year. Erin is a two-time AII-CIF and All-League selection. Once again the Toreros will have several players with inter– national experience to contribute. Besides returnee Keith Finnegan (Ireland), five of the twelve newcomers have played overseas (Federico Seitun, Nicholas Kalafatich, Ulf Stierna, Miguel Suazo and Daniel Blake).

The '96 Schedule

San Diego will face four playoff teams during the 1996 cam– paign including the defending national champion Wisconsin Badgers. USO opens on the road playing Wisconsin along with Western Kentucky in matches at Cal State Fullerton. The Toreros home opener will be September 8 against Stanford also beginning a five-game homestand. For the fourth straight year, USO will host the Diadora Cup with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, UC Santa Barbara and California competing. The Sev– enth Annual MetLife Classic begins the following weekend with Michigan State, UNC Charlotte and San Diego State. The road to the WCC title will begin in San Francisco on October 4 and end at St. Mary's on November 16. The Toreros face NCAA quarterfinalist Santa Clara on October 13 at Torero Sta– dium and NCAA semifinalist Portland on October 25 also at USO. wee and the FarWest Poll There are two important aspects of the USO season: How the Toreros fare in the West Coast Conference race and where they stand in the Far West Region rankings. The WCC race offers a means for automatic qualification into the NCAA tournament. At-large bids into the NCAA ge nerally go to the top four teams seeded in the Far West Reg ion poll conducted by the ISAA. Last year three WCC teams competed in the NCAA tourney with Portland reaching the semifinals.

RICHMOND,VA