Men's Soccer Set to Begin 2013 Season

Connor Erickson is the new Men's Soccer Coach at Wentworth. Erickson takes over a squad that finished 1-11-4 last year and is looking to revitalize a program that has enjoyed years of success, including winning the ECAC tournament in 2009. Erickson is coming off successful stints as an assistant at Wheaton, Bridgewater State and UMass Boston. This is Erickson's first time as a head coach and the Leopards will face a grueling schedule. Wentworth Athletics sat down with Coach Erickson to get his thoughts on the season...

WIT: How has your short tenure at Wentworth been thus far?
CE: My time has been great. Everybody is very welcoming and all my players have been great. The energy level on the field is way up.

WIT: You're a first-year head coach, how much of an adjustment has it been?
CE: It's very different. It's always been my goal to become a head coach. I've learned so much as an assistant but now it's my own program. I've been at three different programs and seen things done a number of different ways. I've picked and chose from all those experiences.

WIT: How tough has it been taking over so late and not having too much time to prepare?
CE: That's definitely been the biggest challenge, but the players have made it really easy on me. The players came in very fit so we didn't have to waste too much time getting in shape. I really needed to see them play and identify what I had, so that was great.

WIT: The team graduated a large number of seniors and I know it's quite a few new faces. How has the leadership been?
CE: The leadership has been great. We do have a lot of guys coming back even though it was a large graduating class. Some guys have clearly stepped up. We selected captains the other day and they made it pretty easy on the coaching staff.

WIT: You've already had two scrimmages thus far, what have you seen from your guys?
CE: Both scrimmages we've had we defended really well.  We definitely fixed some things even though we only had one practice separating both scrimmages. We realize what we need to work on and hopefully we will be scoring a lot of goals this year.

WIT: Have you set any goals or expectations for the team this year?
CE: We got together has a team and discussed both personal and team goals. We're all on the same page. Last year the team didn't qualify for the conference tournament. We think it's very reasonable that we can qualify for the tournament and get a first round home game. That's the floor, not the ceiling.

Coach Erickson and the Leopards will open up their season on the road on August 30 at Babson. The game is slated to start at 2 p.m. His squad faces off against his alma mater, Wheaton, the following afternoon.