Men's Soccer Season Review
The Eagles entered the 2016 season coming off a regional championship and 6th place finish at the NCCAA National Championships. Coupled with that though was the challenge of going through a coaching change as Gary Backous stepped down after a successful 8 year run as head coach of the Eagles.
The team began the season looking to build on the momentum from last year and carry their success over by getting off to a 3-1-1 start with their lone loss coming in a tightly contested 1-0 road loss to North Central University. At that point though the injury bug bit the men's team and it would continue to be a struggle throughout the remainder of the year as several guys changed positions and many others experienced a significant change in their role on the team.
The Eagles battled through the rest of the regular season to finish at 5-6-2, with strong performances mixed in with setbacks. Their strong performances were highlighted by taking top conference opponents and ranked NCCAA teams Manhattan to double overtime before dropping the game by a goal and playing Ozark to a tie on the road, all while continuing to battle through key injuries. Faith put together one of its better stretches at the right time during the MCCC Conference tournament as they took 3rd beating Emmaus and Barclay, two teams they went a combined 0-3 against during the regular season, but bounced back to beat them by a combined 5-1 margin in the tournament. The season concluded with a tough loss to Moody in regional tournament.
Joseph Frerichs was a first team MCCC Conference selection and a first team North Region selection. Josh Bray was named to the second team all conference and first team all region and David Levy joined Bray as a second team all conference selection.
"This was a season marked by learning to overcome adversity. There were moments where we triumphed over it and moments were it got the best of us. Sports provides valuable life and character lessons and this season certainly provided those opportunities for us as a team. But, while the season didn't go the way we would have planned, I was proud of the way the team battled this year and learned to believe and support each other."