MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The 64th team in the history of the WVU men’s soccer program faces a unique and daunting task. They must follow a group that went 17-3-4 and made it to the semifinals of the NCAA College Cup. The Mountaineers set a school record for season wins and matched their best postseason run to date.

“That’s something we addressed in our very first meeting with the group. What do we want this season to look like? There were just so many milestones and accomplishments last season that it would be very easy to compare us to last season. I think we made it very, very clear that we’re not chasing our past this season,” WVU head coach Dan Stratford said.

“We have to go our own way this season. The last thing I want is for us to see it as a failure if we are not 15 games unbeaten at the start of the year, because we were last season. It’s just not realistic to look like that.”

Perhaps the preseason, which ended with a third and final exhibition game on Saturday, can provide a reference point for the Mountaineers. WVU faced UNC-Asheville and Virginia Tech on the road before hosting Montgomery College.

“We lost one of our preseason games and I thought it was good to have that experience. It was good to hopefully put that behind us. I think you have to realise that the status and the title is just that. We are also very human and have to understand what we have to do and what standards we have to apply every day. I thought that was probably the most valuable experience of the preseason.”

West Virginia finished second to Marshall in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament, but the Mountaineers defeated the Thundering Herd 5-2 in the regular season. The game at Dick Dlesk Soccer Stadium, which sold out several weeks before kickoff, provided the team with a special moment and a recruiting point.

“The quality of the crowd, the great event we had last year, it’s one of the first games we look at when we recruit players. It’s not just because we beat the best team in the country at the time, but because there was a huge excitement and energy around it. There were a number of recruits who came forward and saw the game anyway, maybe even before they even thought about West Virginia.”

Junior forward Marcus Caldeira is the Sun Belt Conference Preseason Player of the Year after being named to numerous All-American lists last year, scoring a dozen goals in 24 games. Caldeira was selected 20th overall in the Major League Soccer SuperDraft by Minnesota United in December. Due to new rules for the draft, Caldeira took the opportunity to return to WVU before transferring to Minnesota.

“Marcus was on the radar of several clubs very, very quickly. I think he had scored seven goals after six games and the phones started ringing. Nothing was really a surprise. It was quite a long process. I give Marcus a lot of credit for the way he handled it. You have to understand that Marcus was being talked about as a potential number one and he was still 18 years old. He was under a lot of pressure.”

Eight of West Virginia’s starters from the College Cup against Clemson are back, and 11 of the top 14 players in minutes played are back as well. Stratford says the freshmen played well overall in the preseason, but he acknowledged that opportunities for playing time could be limited with so many veterans on the roster.

“It would be logical to say that opportunities are few and far between. But we really have a really good group that has come here and is going to put pressure on some of these returning players and some of the players that played very, very well for me last season in their positions.”

The battle for the top spot is in goal, as the Mountaineers must replace goalie Jackson Lee. Lee played every minute of the season for West Virginia last fall. Stratford says the competition for the starting spot continues.

“With Marc Bonnaire and Lorenzo Nunez, we have two goalkeepers who have been in the program for a long time and have really pushed each other, maybe even for those two spots, most recently with Jackson Lee. And we have two young players (Toby Mayer and Chase Collins) coming in. Mark and Zo both have the potential to graduate at the end of this season.

“They’ve all done really, really well. We’re still trying to navigate that landscape and figure out how to manage a very, very talented group from top to bottom.”

The Mountaineers open the season with three consecutive home games, starting Thursday with Purdue Fort Wayne. After the season-opening home game, the Mountaineers will play two games in California. The second game is against the Loyola Marymount team that beat WVU to get into the College Cup.

“We actually had the game against LMU planned for a long, long time before our chance meeting in the Elite Eight. So we’re going to California to play an NCAA (tournament) team in Cal Baptist, and then a team we played in the Elite Eight last season. I expect those two teams to be pretty highly ranked, both on the road. That’s a pretty big trip for us.”