Men’s Soccer seeded second entering NEC Playoffs

The Red Flash men’s soccer team will travel to Long Island this week to compete in the Northeast Conference Tournament.

SFU is seeded second in the tournament and will face No. 3 seed Bryant in semifinal action on Friday at 11 a.m. at Long Island University.  Top-seeded LIU will face No. 4 seed Fairleigh Dickinson on Friday at 4 p.m.

The winners of the semifinal games will meet on Sunday at 1 p.m. in the Northeast Conference championship.

SFU finished the regular season with a final record of 9-4-3 and posted an NEC mark of 5-1-2. The lone league loss was a 1-0 setback to Robert Morris in the regular-season finale last Friday, Oct. 26.

This is head coach Frank Olszewski’s first season with the SFU men’s soccer team. Olszewski entered the 2018 season ranked 24th all-time in NCAA Division I with 283 head coaching wins. He spent 31 years as head coach at Towson University before taking over the SFU program this year.

“There are challenges every day, but that is the fun part of the job,” said Olszewski. “We have worked hard to create a positive team environment and to develop internal leadership.

“There has been an excellent amount of support.”

SFU went undefeated at home (5-0) this season. The team defeated battled Bryant to a scoreless tie back on Sept. 30 in Smithfield, Rhode Island.

“This season has been a crazy ride for us,” said sophomore defender Filip Burnett. “We’ve had a lot of ups and downs.”

SFU returns to the NEC Tournament after failing to qualify for the playoffs last season.

“This is another great opportunity for us to prove ourselves,” Burnett said.

“We want to win the NEC Tournament, but we need to take it one game at a time, starting with our semifinal game on Friday.”

All of the NEC Tournament matches can be viewed at www.necfrontrow.com.