Dukes look to smoke Dragons in CAA opener

By Jack McAuley, staff writer
Posted on October 4, 2007

With the first half of the season over, the JMU men’s soccer team will open the Colonial Athletic Association schedule on Friday at home against the Drexel Dragons. Although the 1-4-3 Dukes are facing a 3-2-2 Dragon team, the beginning of CAA play means everyone has a clean slate and equal opportunity to make a run at the conference title.

“[This game] is very important,” senior captain Tristan Murray said. “We just want to start off getting good momentum going into the rest of the conference. It’s a whole new season.”

A whole new season that begins with an opponent that Madison has done well against in the past. The Dukes hold a 4-0-1 series record against the Dragons, including wins in each of the past four matchups and a 3-0 victory last season in Philadelphia.

“We need to focus on how well we play,” Drexel coach Lew Meehl said. “[JMU] is always good especially when they play us.”

The losing record the Dukes currently have can be deceiving to a casual fan. Seven out of the eight games played came against opponents with winning records and of the four losses, all have been by one goal with two finishing in overtime. Three overtime ties to go along with the four losses and the Dukes have narrowly missed a winning record at this point of the season.

“We had a tough out of conference schedule and to be very candid we played pretty well,” JMU coach Tom Martin said. “We were just a little bit unlucky; the ball didn’t bounce our way, we didn’t finish our chances and if you look at the competitive nature of our games, it could have gone either way.”

Capitalizing on their opportunities will be key for the Dukes this Friday as they face Drexel junior goalkeeper Corey Robertson. It will only be Robertson’s third start of the season, as he battled injuries throughout the year, but he is looking for his sixth career shutout against JMU.

“[Robertson] a good keeper,” Martin said. “Like with many teams in the conference, you are not going to get many chances, so your success rate has to be pretty high relative to the chances you get.”

Offensively the Dukes need contributions from many different positions. Six different players scored the eight goals netted this season.

On the defensive side of the ball, Madison will try to stifle a Drexel attack led by 2006 second-team All-CAA sophomore Fabio Assumpcao. Assumpcao only has one goal this season but does more than just score for the Dragons. His playmaking abilities on the ball have sparked a Dragon offense that only scored thirteen goals in seventeen games last season. Through seven games this season Drexel has finished eight chances.

“We are just going to play our game, limit their spaces, limit their touches and focus on us,” Murray said.

Despite early struggles, JMU has remained positive. Early season injuries are starting to heal as players come into match shape, and only two players, junior forward Esteban Maldonado and junior defender Ekom Etuk, are questionable for Friday’s match.

“We look forward to it. The guys are excited, Drexel [is] a good team,” Martin said. “We’ll come out ready to play.”

The game is slated to kickoff at 7 p.m. at the JMU Soccer Complex. Sunday the Dukes face the Delaware Blue Hens at 2 p.m. in another CAA matchup.