Fresh off the success of last season, the Emory University men's soccer team returns to the field to begin the 2022 season this weekend.
Head Coach Cory Greiner, who enters his ninth season with the Eagles and fifth as head of the program, returns 21 players from last year's group that finished 9-4-5 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament. He will be joined on staff by Associate Head Coach Clayton Schmitt, Felipe Quintero and Jose Casique.
Among the returning core will be All-UAA Honorable Mention selection Alejandro Gomez, defensive standouts Cole Hendricks and Luke Price as well as seniors Madison Conduah, Matthew Tanzer and Trey Rielly who all played in all 18 games in 2021. The Eagles will also welcome a group of 11 newcomers featuring transfers Bereket Getachew, Parker Morford, Daniel Misrahi and Sebastian Rincon and seven freshman.
The Eagles, who featured one of the stingiest defensive units in the country last season, will look to rely on his backline again this year as it enters the year with the 10th-best rated defense according to the Massey Ratings.
The latest edition of Greinerball gets underway Friday and Saturday with the annual Sonny Carter Invitational. The annual tournament is held to honor the late Sonny Carter, one of the most distinguished Emory soccer alumnus, who went on to play professional soccer before becoming a doctor and then an astronaut. He was a member of the NASA Discovery crew that spent 120 hours in space in November 1989. He was training for a second space flight when he died tragically in an April 1991 plane crash.
This year's tournament will see the Eagles play host to Illinois Wesleyan, Covenant and Oglethorpe in the two-day invitational with Emory squaring off against Covenant on Opening Night followed by a matchup with the Titans of IWU Saturday afternoon.
Proceeding the opening weekend, the Eagles will take to the road for six games, highlighted by weekend tournaments at Johns Hopkins and Washington & Lee that concludes with a showdown with No. 3 ranked Washington & Lee on September 18.
The team will then begin a string of six out of seven games at the Woodruff PE Center, starting with a non-conference meeting with Rhodes on the final Sunday of September. The following weekend Emory will host WashU in the conference opening before taking on crosstown rival Oglethorpe under the lights on Tuesday, October 4.
A weekend trip to No. 4 ranked Chicago on October 8 briefly halts the homestand prior to the Eagles returning to Atlanta for another three-game swing on campus against NYU, Brandeis and Roanoke.
The final stretch of the year includes a double weekend on the road at Carnegie Mellon and Case Western Reserve before the regular season concludes November 5 at home with Rochester.
Emory, who enters the season ranked No. 22 in the United Soccer Coaches Preseason Poll, is set to play nine games at home, seven true road games and two neutral contests.