Otterbein men's soccer regular season schedule is coming to a close currently sitting with a 9-2-5 and a 5-1-1 conference record.
The team looks to maintain its success after last season’s run in the Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament (OAC) to punch their ticket into the NCAA Tournament.
The Cardinals' season has gone mostly how they knew it would, as the goals created by teammates and coaches are to be the OAC champions within the regular season and to repeat their title run inside the OAC tournament. After the loss to Ohio Northern, and the Polar Bears defeating Wilmington College, the Tan and Cardinal will not be regular season OAC champions. However, the Cardinals will be set up nicely with a top seed going into the OAC tournament.
Fifth-year senior striker Nick Issac said that another main goal for the team to get where they want to is to protect home field. So far, this goal has been heavily aligned with the success of this team, as Otterbein is currently in line for the 2nd seed in the OAC. The Cardinals currently sport a solid 6-1-2 record in Memorial Stadium.
There are more reasons why this team has found so much success this year. Senior midfielder Colm Oneacre said that the success is due to the amount of experience that the Cardinals have as a unit.
Oneacre said that they have “a good core group of guys on the team who have done this before and kind of knows what it takes.” There is a lot of experience throughout the team as the Cardinals starting lineup contains eight upperclassmen, with plenty more among the bench unit that substitute in.
Another key factor that has played a role in the Cardinals' success has been their ability to play in big games and stand toe to toe with anyone up to this point. Isaac said that the team is really up for it when the big games have come, giving examples of their ranked win over Case Western Reserve and being able to force a draw against the number one ranked Denison University, who had not even let off a goal at that point.
The Cardinals play their last regular season game this Saturday against the Student Princes of Heidelberg University at 6p.m.
