After defeating Niagara by a score of five goals to three last Saturday at Hesse Field on The Great Lawn, Monmouth men’s soccer was crowned Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Regular Season Champions for the eleventh time in its history and the second time in the last three years.
“It’s unbelievable,” said senior defender and captain David Acuna Camacho after the win on Senior Night. “I think this might be the last time I’m going to play here [at Hesse Field]. No words can describe it, it’s an unbelievable feeling.”
Clinching the MAAC Regular Season Championship was the icing on the cake for the Hawks at the end of what was a highly successful week for the team. A week earlier, on Saturday, Oct. 17, Monmouth drew 0-0 with Fairfield in Connecticut. The following Tuesday, Monmouth men’s soccer was ranked 25 in the NSCAA NCAA Division I Men’s National Poll and 29 position the College Soccer News Top 30 National Poll. The team’s 12-game unbeaten streak up to that point earned the Hawks that national recognition.
“Having that [a national ranking] is just great for our school and great for the guys coming in and great for our confidence, so it’s just great overall,” said sophomore defender Joey Gudzak.
However, while the Hawks’ regular season is drawing to a close on a high, it began in quite an opposite manner. Three successive losses to UMass Lowell, Providence, and Hartford, respectively, was not an ideal way to begin the campaign for Monmouth. But the Hawks bounced back. Monmouth was able to get back on track after that third game against Hartford and they haven’t looked back since.
“It takes a couple games to get used to playing with a whole new back line, and a couple new guys in the midfield, it’s just tough,” said Camacho on the three losses. “Everyone has to be on the same page for everything to go right, and it just takes time.”
After a 5-0 routing of Howard at Hesse Field on The Great Lawn, Monmouth welcomed nationally-ranked Villanova to West Long Branch in a match that both Camacho and Gudzak believe was the turning point of the season. The Hawks won 3-1 that night and got the ball rolling.
“It was a tough game. We came here, they were ranked, we took care of business, and it took a lot of character,” said Camacho.
“Every single game we went in one-hundred-fifty percent, so we really wanted to win every single game after starting off so poorly. I thought that every single game we were really fired up,” said Gudzak, who had only just begun working his way into the side at the time. “Against Villanova we really stepped it up and that was really the turning point of the season. After that, we just kept on winning.”
The Hawks haven’t stopped yet. In their next match following the big win over Villanova, they played out a tough 110-minute battle with Rutgers University that ended scoreless. Following the scoreless tie, Monmouth went on a five game winning streak.
“Everyone’s just sticking together, making sure we’re taking care of the details and just trusting the coaches and everything that they tell us, it was essential for our success,” said Camacho.
Monmouth found their feet and were able to turn their season around. Going into their final regular season match next Saturday at Marist, the Hawks have not lost a match since Sept. 4, versus Hartford.
While Monmouth losing their first three matches seems like a minor hiccup in the grand scheme of things, it cannot go understated. With a MAAC Regular Season Championship, national ranking and a now 14 match unbeaten streak as backing, the buzz around West Long Branch is growing.
“We knew we had the talent and the quality. It just takes a couple games to get everything together. We knew it was going to turn around at some point, but thankfully it turned around this way,” Camacho said with confidence.
The Hawks are not done yet; as the MAAC Regular Season Champions, Monmouth has earned themselves the number one seed and a first round bye at the MAAC Championships, taking place Nov. 5-9 at Disney’s Wide World of Sports in Lake Buena Vista, FL. The Hawks will be aiming to win their second MAAC Tournament Championship in a row.
PHOTO COURTESY of Taylor Jackson
