Stu Riddle inherited a team in need of a change when he took over as head coach of the men's soccer team before this season.
The Bulls had finished with a disappointing 5-11-1 record in 2012, a year after making the Mid-American Conference Tournament.
Change is exactly what Riddle brought.
He put his own stamp on the team, bringing in 12 freshmen and three transfers, including a player from his native New Zealand. He also brought six players he had originally recruited at Western Michigan. After the transition, there were only eight players on the 2013 Bulls' roster who were on the 2012 team.
The season went as one could have expected: The young team, led by a new head coach, struggled and finished 3-11-4. They had trouble scoring goals (15 in 18 games), playing well on the road and fighting their way back from deficits.
Despite their shortcomings this season, the Bulls are set to have success in the long run. And Riddle is a coach who knows how to turn around a program and win in the MAC. He's done it before.
Riddle was head coach of Western Michigan from 2009-12, going 33-36-9 (12-9-4 MAC). The Broncos hadn't made the MAC Tournament in the four years before Riddle arrived. During Riddle's tenure, they made back-to-back MAC Championship game appearances in 2010 and 2011, including an upset of defending national champion Akron in the 2011 semifinals. The Bulls will need his experience to improve upon their 1-4-1 conference record this season.
Twelve of the team's 23 players are freshmen and only two seniors are graduating. The core group from this season will have several years to develop together to eventually compete for conference championships. The most important part of the Bulls' young nucleus is freshman midfielder Russell Cicerone.
Cicerone was the Bulls' offense this season, leading the team in goals (six), points (15) and shots (54). Cicerone scored all three of the Bulls' game-winning goals. He was also the only freshman captain and the first Bull since 2010 to receive MAC Player of the Week honors. If this team is going to win in the future, it will be on Cicerone's foot.
The Bulls have several other promising offensive players to complement Cicerone. Freshman midfielder Nicolai Berry finished the season strong, scoring seven points in his final six games. Sophomore Marcus Hanson flourished with two goals and five points after switching from defenseman to forward, and freshmen Nicolay Netskar and Braden Culver also made offensive contributions as reserves.
The offense improved as the season went on, scoring 10 goals in the final half of the season after scoring only five in the first half.
The defense is also filled with underclassmen, and as a unit allowed only 1.47 goals per game. Sophomores Jake Jacobs and Shane Satar became the veterans of the group in just their second seasons. Satar was highly active on defense and seemed to be all over the field, while Jacobs scored his first goal as a Bull this year. Austin Place and Daniel Cramarossa were both starters as freshmen in the backline and played well.
The Bulls will have their starting goalkeeper, Waleed Cassis, for another season. Despite a subpar win-loss record (2-11-4), the transfer from California State University, Los Angeles was solid between goalposts for the Bulls, registering two shutouts and a 1.42 goals against average.
For the future, the team has two freshmen goalkeepers, in Andrew Siviy and Ryan O'Mara, who could eventually take over for Cassis. Siviy looked solid in his lone start of the season, making six saves in a 3-1 win over Gannon.
Most importantly, the Bulls were a better team at the end of the season than they were at the beginning of it. After going winless in their first seven games, the Bulls went 3-6-1 to finish out the year.
In a late-season three-game home stand, the Bulls defeated Gannon and Hartwick - the top team in the MAC at the time - and took nationally ranked Akron to double overtime.
That three-game stretch sold me that this team is full of potential. Defeating a top team in the MAC like Hartwick and taking one of the top teams in the entire country to double overtime demonstrated a lot of poise for a young team. Cicerone said before the Gannon match that Riddle stressed scoring on set pieces. In that game, the Bulls scored twice on set pieces.
That's a team buying into what its coach is teaching.
But the Bulls still have a long way to go. Too often this season they were unable to overcome early struggles and would let bad play snowball. They also need to learn to play well away from UB Stadium. They were outscored 21-8 on the road this season.
Improvement in those areas will come with time. After their season finale against Northern Illinois, Riddle said he didn't think their record truly reflected where they were as a team. I think he's right. The Bulls have the pieces to be a contender in the MAC for years to come and a coach who knows how to lead them there.
Competing for a MAC Championship was an unrealistic goal this season, but it shouldn't be in the future.
email: tfdinki@buffalo.edu
Photo: Ryan Hagen | UB Athletics
Photo: Paul Hokanson / UB Athletics
