By Collin Bolebruch
October 7, 2023. The Plattsburgh Cardinals men’s soccer team is undefeated in conference play, enjoying its best start to a season in seven years.
October 21, 2023. Plattsburgh fell 0-1 to Geneseo, missing the SUNYAC’s six-team playoffs entirely and finishing the last five games 0-3-2.
“The end of last season was traumatic, seriously,” head coach Chris Taylor said. “It took me a long time to get over that.”
To overcome the events of last season, the 2024 Cardinals believe in the need for a fresh start.
“That was brutal,” senior John Hayes said. “When there’s no change, people start losing it, they start getting checked out.”
The team needs to be better this year. And they’re serious about it.
ROSTER
“There’s so much newness. It’s almost like a brand-new team. It really feels that way, and we kind of wanted that,” Taylor, entering his seventh season, said. “It’s felt like we’ve had the same team for like five, six years.”
The Cardinals lost seven long-time players to graduation: captains Jack Healy and Dylan Shalvey, Marcial Vasquez, Frankie Palumbo, Kevin Abbondanza, Matthew Pitarresi and Christian Garner.
Garner was the last remaining player from the team’s 2019 SUNYAC Championship appearance.
Also missing from this year’s roster are sophomore Cesar Calderon, who transferred to SUNY Ulster, junior Aiden Jaremczuk and sophomores Brendan McGlinchey and Brandon Juandoo.
Anna McDuffie, who served one season as the Cardinals’ first-ever female assistant coach, will not return to the sideline. Geoff Spear, goalkeeper coach, is back for his 29th season.
The Cardinals “cast a wide net” for talent, Taylor said, and landed a significant number of recruits. The final roster includes 30 players — 13 newcomers and 17 returners.
Two transfers will take the field in Cardinal red, including graduate student midfielder Thomas O’Neill from New Paltz and junior defender Randall Ashong from Ulster.
O’Neill missed time with injury last season, starting just five of 16 games for New Paltz. After graduating, he moved on from the program. He contacted Plattsburgh about playing and it was a “no-brainer” for Taylor, who has watched him since high school.
O’Neill has made a strong voice for himself in the Plattsburgh locker room, becoming a leader quickly, Taylor said.
“We’ve got to be patient with him. If we can get him close to full health, he’s going to be a massive asset from a leadership perspective and from an experience perspective.”
Taylor has developed a relationship with Ulster’s program, partially stemming from last season’s transfer of Modou Badjie to Plattsburgh. Badjie’s success and relationship to Ashong influenced the move.
Taylor said the team tried to get a “couple of others” from Ulster, but nothing materialized. A commit from Hartwick, Ramon Irizarry, also fell through.
This season’s first-year class features 11 names: goaltenders Michael D’Ippolito and Joey Raap; defenders Lucas Arbelaez, Jack Murphy and Alex Tylar; midfielders Aaron Cohen and Alex Guevara; and forwards Koky Duarte, John Gibbons, Owen Langer and Ryan Shalvey, brother of Dylan.
Just one goaltender, senior Teddy Healy, returns.
Healy has been a reliable starter, missing two games to injury in 2022. His consistency makes a lack of experience behind him less concerning, but Taylor is confident in his rookies if the worst were to happen.
“If they’re here, they’re good enough,” Taylor said. “It’s up to them to take an opportunity if they get it. We have no issue putting any of them on the field.”
Four returning defenders are listed: juniors Colter Cheney-Seymour, Tony Kochelev and Justin Siegel and senior Brian Coughlan. Coughlan is the only veteran with significant play time.
“[I’ve] been trying to get everyone as comfortable as possible,” Coughlan said. “We’ve seen a couple of kids step up. Those are three spots that are fully open for anyone to play, so it really entices them to play better.”
Six returning midfielders made the cut: sophomores Jake McGowan and Michael Rodriguez; juniors Mariano Marras, Danny Perry and Santiago Vargas; and senior Hayes.
This year’s group is less physical than last year’s, as for the last few classes, Taylor has pursued smart, fast players.
“We’ve got guys that are technical, quick on and off the ball, and can receive the ball in tight spaces,” Hayes said.
Six returning forwards round out the roster: sophomores Connor Howe, Xavier Kamba, Tristan Laundree, Bradyn Primus; and seniors Badjie and Maximus Pericic.
TEAM
“For the team we’ve had, for the players we’ve had, we haven’t done enough,” Taylor said. “We can all kind of look in the mirror and admit that it’s been disappointing.”
The Cardinals hit a wall with their previous team structure, making the playoffs just once after its 2019 run. To evolve, and break past the ceiling they’ve hit, the Cards needed to take drastic measures.
“We wanted to almost raise the floor, make sure the standard was really, really high. And we have to be ruthless about it in the end,” Taylor said.
Taylor, over the summer, served as assistant manager for the Vermont Green FC of the USL League Two in Burlington, Vermont. There, he found more of a voice for player management and instruction.
“One of my goals is that I’ve been demanding, but I could be more,” Taylor said. “I think I can be guilty of focusing on the rest of the group and letting the top players be themselves, but I think I owe it to them to drive everybody and drive the best to be even better.”
Plattsburgh features three four-year starters: Hayes, Coughlan and Healy. Taylor described the players as ones that can “win you the game.” This season, he aims to push them like he hasn’t before.
“Sometimes you’ve got to get stuck into someone that can handle the criticism,” Taylor said. “It’s about sending a message to the team through the players that can handle it.”
Hayes said the method works for him, and he hopes other, less experienced players take him as an example.
“I’m always fine with that, I can take it. Me and him were going at it [last Monday] at practice,” Hayes said. “He’s just trying to make the team better.”
Traditionally, the team doesn’t assign captains, but rather a leadership committee. Players will wear the armband on-field, but off the field, a group of players take the role. Coughlan, Hayes and Healy will serve and Taylor has said O’Neill, Perry and Cheney-Seymour could participate.
SCHEDULE
The SUNYAC was rocked last summer when long-time members SUNY Brockport and SUNY Geneseo announced their departures, effective for the 2024-25 academic year. Both teams made the playoffs last season and have 13 conference titles between them.
Soon after, SUNY Morrisville and SUNY Canton, formerly of the North Atlantic Conference, were granted full-time membership. Canton finished the men’s soccer season 5-7-4 and Morrisville finished 4-10-4.
New Paltz, another playoff team, will leave for the New Jersey Athletic Conference for the 2025-26 year with no replacement named.
The Cardinals will host its first tournament since 2019 with the Northwestern Mutual Cardinal Classic beginning today at 4 p.m. The event will feature games against Manhattanville University and Baruch College, teams that both appeared in the NCAA Tournament. SUNYAC rival Potsdam will also compete.
Two more NCAA Tournament invitees come from within the conference. The Cardinals play Cortland on the road Oct. 5 and Oneonta at home Oct. 9, both games the Cardinals dropped last season.
Plattsburgh will play its final in-conference game against New Paltz at home Oct.16.
The Cardinals will play Morrisville on Sept. 28, which will also serve as senior day, and Canton on the road Oct. 26, the last SUNYAC game of the season.
Outside of the conference, Plattsburgh will play UMass Boston, Endicott College, Clarkson University, Union College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and St. Lawrence University.
The Cardinals won both of their preseason bouts, defeating Norwich 1-0 on the road Aug. 21 and Division II St. Michael’s 2-0 at home Aug. 24.
“It’s definitely going to take time for us to become a big unit,” Healy said. “It’s been better than I expected so far. We’re starting to put the pieces together, playing together more and more each day.”
Taylor said he wants the team to take a “respect every one, fear no one” approach with opponents, and the sting of last season to not affect an untried roster.
“We’re not sitting here talking to new guys about traumatic events,” Taylor said. “Be brave. Be bold. And If we’re going to lose, we’ll lose trying to win.”
