View the 2013 Women's Soccer Schedule
Preparing for its first season in NCAA Division I, the UMass Lowell women's soccer team released its schedule Wednesday, announced 12th-year head coach Elie Monteiro.
UMass Lowell's entry into Division I competition will be a significant change as only six of its 18 matches will be played at home, a byproduct of the transition to Division I.
As per NCAA rules, UMass Lowell is eligible to play in the NCAA Tournament and America East Conference Tournament in 2017. The River Hawks return 15 veterans and six starters from the 2012 squad which went 6-9-2 overall and 5-9-1 in the Northeast-10 Conference (10th place).
On the slate are a 2012 regular season co-champion, one tournament champion, two conference runners-up and three of the top six teams in the Ivy League. The non-conference clashes should prepare the River Hawks well for a rigorous America East schedule over the second half of the season.
"We are playing very well established programs that we will learn from in the first half of the season," said Monteiro. "That experience will help going into the conference schedule in the latter stages of the season. We have a large number of new players we've added to the team, so the time on the road will help us get to know each other."
The River Hawks, who play only two of their first nine matches at Cushing Field, will be challenged each match, particularly in their first. The campaign begins Thursday, Aug. 29 at Marist College, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) regular season co-champion and MAAC Tournament finalist.
The Marist game is followed by dates at Cincinnati (Sept. 1) and Siena College (Sept. 6) and UMass Lowell's first home match Sept. 8 against Yale. After matches at Cleveland State (Sept. 13), Sacred Heart (Sept. 15), which placed fourth in the Horizon League, and Atlantic-10 contender St. Bonaventure (Sept. 20), the River Hawks host Harvard, which placed fourth in the Ivy league, Sept. 22, and visit Ivy runner-up Dartmouth Sept. 26.
UMass Lowell opens its AEC schedule Oct. 3 at home against Vermont, one of four home matches in the month of October, followed by a visit to Stony Brook, the 2012 AEC Tournament champion.
The River Hawks will also entertain AEC runner-up Hartford (Oct. 13), Maryland Baltimore County (Oct. 20) and Binghamton (Oct. 24) at home.
"It's difficult to predict exactly what we can expect from each opponent," Monteiro said. "All we can go on is what we learned by playing a few Division I opponents during the spring season. We saw that we needed to raise our level of fitness. We saw that we needed to be more disciplined tactically and we also need to continue to improve technically.
"Our spring games highlighted our need to improve our speed of play, so I anticipate that being the case when we go up against opponents up and down the schedule, not just in America East," he added.
