Centennial Conference Preseason Poll
HAVERFORD, Pa. – Coming off of back-to-back Centennial Conference Championships, the Haverford College men's soccer team is the favorite to complete a three-peat this fall according to the conference's preseason poll. The Fords collected six of the 10 first-place votes among conference coaches and finished with a total of 78 points. Coaches were not allowed to vote for their own teams.
Franklin & Marshall (73 points) and Johns Hopkins (67 points) each received two first-place votes as they finished second and third in the poll. Gettysburg (55 points) and Dickinson (50 points) rounded out the top five spots in the preseason release.
Haverford went 14-3-4 last year with an 8-1 record in Centennial Conference play. Suffering its lone conference setback of the past two seasons on the road against Franklin & Marshall last fall, the Fords avenged that loss with a 2-1 victory over the Diplomats in the conference championship played on Walton Field.
With that win, Haverford became the first team in conference history to win both the regular season and tournament titles in consecutive seasons. The Fords are currently unbeaten in their last 16 regular season Centennial Conference matches on Walton Field, a streak that includes 15 straight wins and dates back to the 2013 season.
Haverford has played in the conference championship match five times in head coach Shane Rineer's six years as head coach. The team has won three Centennial Conference Championships during that time and has hosted the conference tournament by virtue of holding the best regular season conference record in three of the past four seasons.
The Fords will have a new look this year as they graduated a class of 10 players which left the program as the winningest four-year group in school history. That talented class featured four All-Centennial Conference selectionsn in 2016, but Haverford will still return eight of its postseason starters from last season, including four returning all-conference honorees.
Men's soccer opens its season on Friday, September 1 with a 4 p.m. trip to Cabrini while the home opener is slotted for Wednesday, September 6 at 5 p.m. against No. 11 Messiah. The Fords, who are ranked No. 18 nationally in the United Soccer Coaches (formerly NSCAA) preseason poll will open up Centennial Conference play with a trip to Johns Hopkins on Saturday, September 16.