March 15, 2006

UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. - In 2006, the University of Richmond men's soccer team will play three teams that went to the 2005 NCAA Tournament and will host seven home games, including in-state rival Virginia Tech.

Richmond will play 2005 NCAA participants Coastal Carolina, Lafayette and Virginia Tech. The game against the in-state rival Hokies will be the 12th meeting between the two schools, but first since 1994. Richmond holds a 7-4 advantage in the all-time series.

"We think we put together a challenging out of conference schedule that will prepare us for Atlantic 10 play," Richmond head coach Jeff Gettler said. "The guys are excited. We're returning a veteran team and hope we have the maturity to produce the kind of results we're expecting so we can get back to the level that we want the program to be at."

The Spiders, who return a roster full of sophomores and juniors, are coming off a 4-8-6 season with the six ties setting a school record and coming one short of the previous national record.

Richmond will open the season with seven-straight road games, but then play seven of the next 10 matches at home. The Spiders open the season with trips to Rider (Aug. 25) and Villanova (Aug. 27), then play in the Coastal Carolina Invitational against Furman (Sept. 1) and Coastal Carolina (Sept. 3).

The Spiders then play against Lafayette (Sept. 8) and Lehigh (Sept. 10) in the Lafayette Invitational, before playing its first game in the state of Virginia at downtown against Virginia Commonwealth (Sept. 13). The Spiders defeated their city rivals 1-0 in 2005 on a thrilling last-minute goal by Alex Naime.

Richmond opens the home schedule with visits from Longwood (Sept. 16), Virginia Tech (Sept. 19) and Loyola (Sept. 23). The Spiders kick-off Atlantic 10 play with a trip to Philadelphia to face Saint Joseph's (Sept. 29) and Temple (Oct. 1), before returning home for George Washington (Oct. 6) and La Salle (Oct. 8).

The Spiders play at Charlotte (Oct. 14), host St. Bonaventure (Oct. 20) and Fordham (Oct. 22) and close out the regular season with a trip to Ohio to face Dayton (Oct. 27) and Xavier (Oct. 29).

The Spiders return a lot of experience, especially in goal, where Eric Sciocchetti enters his junior year as a two-year starter and second-team All-Atlantic 10 selection last fall. He posted a 1.32 goals against average and .806 save percentage in 17 games.