Belief in themselves and a deep roster has enabled Ohio State men‘s soccer to go from unranked entering the season to the No. 1 team in the nation entering the postseason.
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Ohio State Men’s Soccer’s Rise to No. 1 Fueled By Well-Rounded Play, Buckeyes’ Belief in Themselves
Ohio State men’s soccer’s emergence as the top-ranked team in the country seemingly came out of nowhere. But the Buckeyes themselves always believed they could have a special team this season.
The Buckeyes weren’t even ranked in the United Soccer Coaches’ preseason poll for Division I men’s soccer, and understandably so. Entering this season, Ohio State had only one winning season in six years under head coach Brian Maisonneuve and went just 6-6-6 in 2023.
Inside the program, however, Ohio State’s players were confident they had what it would take to become a championship contender this season.
“My roommate freshman year was (fellow junior midfielder) Luciano Pechota and we talked quite a bit and we had been saying that these next couple of years and when we get older, there's going to be something special. So I think we've been saying it since we were freshmen and continue to say it,” Ohio State midfielder Ashton Bilow told
Eleven Warriors.
Ohio State was coming off of back-to-back losing seasons when Maisonneuve took over the program in 2018, and the Buckeyes had four more losing seasons in a row to start Maisonneuve’s tenure as coach. The Buckeyes finally ended their seven-year NCAA Tournament drought in 2022 when the Buckeyes went 11-3-6 and made the second round of the national tournament. But after a step back last season, Ohio State has finally emerged as the championship-caliber team Maisonneuve always believed it could be, entering the postseason as the No. 1 team in the United
Soccer Coaches poll.
“I said it at the beginning of the year, this is a special group, and they've shown it,” Maisonneuve said Thursday. “They've stepped up actually from preseason, from the first game of the season against Cleveland State, where things didn't go our way, but the guys stayed together and stuck to the process and just did a great job. I mean, they work so hard individually and for the team, and the locker room's great. It's a joy to work with this group.”
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