Alyssa Radu's squad is back to 0-0-0 at the midway point.

Winning has not been a very common occurrence for the women’s soccer team in recent years. Having played for over a month already this year the team is without a victory at 0-8-1. Missed opportunities, an inability to rebound from big momentum shifts, and a few injuries have tortured the women’s soccer team through their non-conference slate this season but, guess how many of those games matter: zero.

No matter how good a team in the America East conference’s record may be, getting an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament is hard to do; the only way to guarantee a spot it by winning the conference tournament.

Now I’m not saying the women’s soccer team is going to win the conference but simply getting into the America East tournament would be a successful season for this squad at this point and not one game they have played yet this season has any baring on their chances to do that.

Last Wednesday the women’s soccer team snapped an eight-game losing streak. While it was a scoreless draw against an incredibly banged up Navy team that had to play a man-down for the final 52 minutes of the game, the players saw a small glimmer of light. Even in the situation, anything is better than losing; all the hard work the girls have put in since the beginning of August didn’t just get smashed with another tally in the loss column.

For the women’s soccer team conference play can’t come at a better time. Going into their eight-game conference schedule off a tie rather than nine-straight losses is going to be a confidence booster and that is what has really been hurting the team.

The women’s soccer team has a good corp. group of players that can contend in America East games but losing bread losing and more losing.

In the grand scheme of things the women’s soccer team’s record is 0-0-0. Conference play is sort of a “second season”. Nothing the team has done, or not done, means anything, all that matters is the eight games they have left and in a nine-team conference that allows six-teams in the tournament it doesn’t take too many conference wins to get in, historically the sixth-placed team in the conference only has three victories, and sometimes even two has been enough.

The season is far from over for the women’s soccer team, it starts tomorrow when they host Hartford.

Sophomore fullback Daniel Welsh is one of the nation's top-rising fullbacks.

I’ll start by saying this, I never expected that a team that failed to receive a vote a week ago would jump into the national rankings with a loss, no matter who is was against or what the situation was. With that said though, I’m fairly surprised the UMBC men’s soccer team didn’t even get a vote in either the College Soccer News nor NSCAA national polls.

Draws to St. Francis (N.Y.) and Navy are no exactly great things to have one a team’s resume but UMBC proved how good they really are against No. 1 Maryland last week. Maryland is a team that completely demolished Boston College, which was No. 8 at the time, 4-0, their previous game.

Maryland is a good team, a very good team that will be in the hunt for a national championship again this year, but UMBC showed they are on that same level by taking them to double-overtime after coming back from two goals down with only nine minutes to go in regulation.

Of UMBC’s six games this year three teams have been shut out and the team consists of maybe the nation’s best goalkeeper, an All-American forward/midfielder, and one of the nation’s top-rising center backs, who keep in mind was not available against the Terps.

The men’s soccer team started the 2011 campaign just outside the national rankings, receiving votes in both polls but dropped off when they drew St. Francis (N.Y.), which remember the game was cut short because of a power-outage, and Navy, a tough local rival that is also one of the nation’s rising teams.

UMBC definitely has the pieces to be incredibly successful this season but haven’t gotten that one statement victory yet but with Bucknell, Penn State, and a very tough conference slate, including a game at Boston U, left on their schedule they will have plenty of chances to get the recognition they deserve as one of the nation’s best teams.

In his 21st season as head coach Pete Caringi Jr. has built the men's soccer team into one of the best team's in the nation.

Moral victories are for teams that don’t expect to win. Most teams would consider it a huge moral victory if they came back from two goals down in the final ten minutes to take the No. 1 team in the country to double overtime before suffering a loss, but men’s soccer Pete Caringi Jr. made it clear that for his team, the 4-3 loss to Maryland was not a moral victory.

“We thought we could win the game, we went in thinking we could win the game, we played until the very end thinking we can win the game so we don’t take away any moral victories because they’re the No. 1 team in the country,” he said.

Last season the men’s soccer team beat national power houses Bucknell, Penn State, and Princeton, all on the road. Now, they expect to beat the best teams in the nation, not just hope for the best when they take the field against them.

UMBC’s men’s soccer team has gone through a major transition the past few seasons. Two years ago the men’s soccer team made a huge step forward and became a dominant team in the America East conference. Last year they took an even bigger step forward and became one of the best teams in the nation.

A couple of years ago the squad was really considered to be the No. 4 team in the state of Maryland behind the Terps, Loyola, and Towson. Now they’re fighting to be the best team in the state and country.

A couple of years ago UMBC would have never dreamed of getting recruits like Zach Wenger (The No. 15 recruit as ranked by ESPN Rise) or Daniel Welsh. Now UMBC is landing these talents.

It seems weird to say since he’s been the team’s head coach for 21 years but Caringi is still building the program; he brought it up the East Coast Conference to the Big South, through their stint with the Northeast, and now he’s having success in the America East, which is one of the best mid-major conferences in college soccer, and he’s moving the program up on a national level.

So now when his team takes the field against a national powerhouse like Maryland he and his players all expect a victory, something that may not have been the case even two or three years ago.

A quietly solid performer, Andy Streilein has been a part of some big plays at UMBC.

When you think of UMBC men’s soccer Andy Streilein generally isn’t a name that pops into your head but he has been just as big a part of the team’s 28-10-6 record the past three seasons as anybody and with five seconds left in regulation against the Navy Midshipmen the Retriever nation was chanting his name.

UMBC seemed to be headed for their first loss of the season but Streilein did everything he could to keep them in the game. Down 1-0, with only a few seconds left Streilein headed a chip by Dan Louisignau toward the goal but it went wide. But instead of giving up on the play Streilein followed the ball and when Kinglsey Onwuka prevented it from going out of bounds he back-heeled it into the goal and forced the tie.

When Streilein transferred to UMBC before the 2009 season from Delaware, where he was their leading scorer as a freshman, he was immediately inserted into the Retriever’s midfield as an offensive weapon. While he finished the season with only one goal he had the crucial job of bringing the ball up the sideline to the offense and setting up chances to score.

Last season, however, injuries forced him to play left back, a position he did not play since his youth career, and he thrived in it. Streilein started 11 games at left back and still proved to be an important part of the team’s offense. In the team’s upset over Princeton in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Streilein booted the ball up the field to spark the game-winning goal.

Streilein may not be the best left back in the conference, he’s probably not even the best defender UMBC has, but he is a good player with great two-way ability. It’s been a while since UMBC has had a goal scored against them from the left side and every once in a while he’ll make a play on offense that will make you remember his name.

Nobody will know what would have happened in the remainder of that game but the fact that it ended early because a power outage left everybody in the dark was just severely disappointing for many reasons.

Once a soccer game enters the 71st minute it is a legal game that counts the rest of the way should it have to end early. UMBC’s game against St. Francis (N.Y.) was halted just after that and now it’s officially in the books as a scoreless draw.

But first, and far more importantly, I have to say this, walking out of there in the pitch black was incredibly dangerous so I’m making a motion that if UMBC doesn’t get a generator to power the entire facility should something happen again (UMBC has power issues all the time) then at least get some smaller spot lights for fan safety.

I literally could not see when the lights turned off a few minutes before 9:00 so imagine how dark it would be in October. UMBC Soccer Park is all hills. You have to walk down a hill to get in, up a hill to get out, and behind the bleachers, after the uneven pathway of rocks, it a large hill that fans often sit on. For the most part the darkness is going to be fine but it can be a treacherous landscape. I for one had to help a lady with a cast on her leg walk out because she could not see she was going.

Fan safety is ultimately the most important thing and while a power outage may not even happen again for a couple years, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

But back to the soccer, here’s why having that game go in the books as a draw is bad thing for UMBC: they’re on the cusp of being a nationally ranked team.

Once again, I’m not saying that in the final 19 or so minutes UMBC would have won, I’m not saying they would have lost, and I’m not saying it would have ended as a draw, but 19 minutes is a lot of time in soccer and anything could have happened.

But now, with an incomplete game, UMBC has a draw against a team that is alright but nothing spectacular and I doubt that when voters are looking at UMBC’s resume they’re going to say “well, that game did end early so we can’t count the draw against them.” No, that wouldn’t happen. By having that incomplete game end in a draw it’s actually a negative that may cost UMBC a vote in the rankings or who knows, a draw against St. Francis (N.Y.) may cost them a home game in the NCAA tournament, or even worse, an at-large bid should they need one.

Like I said before, I was a bit surprised that there wasn’t a backup generator capable of powering that field. Lets just hope not lights go off for the rest of the season, especially not when UMBC hosts Maryland, Bucknell, Penn State, or New Hampshire in their four televised games this year.