Here is the fourth installment of a series taking a look at each of the eight Division III programs in the state according to their order of finish from last season. This is Frostburg State's turn.
Overview: The Bobcats continued to raise the bar. After capturing a program-record 11 wins in 2013, they bettered that mark by winning 13 games last spring. Frostburg State finished fourth in the Capital Athletic Conference for the second straight year and claimed its first win in the league tournament. Although the team eventually fell to top seed and eventual national runner-up Salisbury in the CAC tournament semifinal, it was confirmation that the Bobcats are making the kind of progress they envisioned when they started the program in 2011.
Reason for optimism: The offense raised its average from 11.7 goals per game in 2013 to 12.3 in 2014, and there are signs that the unit could match that number this spring.
Despite graduating attackman Ryan Serio's 39 goals and nine assists, Frostburg State returned seven of its next top eight scorers. The offense welcomes back its top four midfielders in seniors Chris Rios (21, 24) and Greg Bourne (24, 8), junior Tate Rolland (21, 10) and senior Spencer Barnett (11, 6).
And adding junior Nick Stailey (12, 2) to a starting attack that includes senior Devin Colegrove (27, 35) and junior Spenser Love (35, 6) gives the Bobcats some serious muscle on that end of the field and coach Tommy Pearce some comfort.
"I think our top six or seven guys on offense are really tough for other teams to match up with," he said. "We think that returning all of our top guys on the offensive end is going to make it really tough for teams to defend us."
Reason for pessimism: For the past two seasons, the defense had the luxury of relying on goalkeeper Tyler Haines to anchor its efforts. But Haines (7.76 goals-against average and .580 save percentage in 2014) graduated, leaving a considerable hole in the cage.
The competition has been narrowed to a pair of juniors in Tom Kraemer and Taylor Schmitz (South Carroll). Kraemer played in 12 games in his first two years, while Schmitz appeared in nine. Pearce said he has not decided who will start in the team's season opener on Feb. 21 at Bridgewater.
"Right now, we've got two junior goalies, and we think we'd feel great with either one of those guys," Pearce said. "At the end of the fall, we had Tom a little bit ahead of Taylor, but they're both playing great right now. We're confident with both of those guys, but Tom Kraemer might have the advantage right now."
Keep an eye on: The defense that will police the field in front of either Kraemer or Schmitz also has a few questions to answer.
Sophomores Alex Philips and Chris Santina are competing for the right to replace Korey Bosley (25 ground balls and 11 caused turnovers) and Jake McNew (23 GB, 4 CT) as the starting long-stick midfielder. The two starting short-stick defensive midfield spots will be filled by either sophomore John Gamber or freshmen Sterling Hardy and Quinn Western.
Finally, seniors Zach Burkhardt (45 GB, 34 CT) and Paul Newman (27 GB, 21 CT) are back on close defense, but the competition for the third starter is ongoing.
"We've intentionally left that open through the fall just to make sure that everybody feels like they're in the mix and they really work hard," Pearce said. "Andrew Richardson is a returning senior who has played a good bit. And then we've got a freshman, Bradley Jones, who looks like he could really help us out right away."
What he said: The senior class that graduated after last season was the first group to graduate under Pearce. Five were starters and four more were major contributors, but Pearce said the losses were mitigated by a deep group of returners spread evenly across every position.
"If we had graduated an entire defense or an entire attack or half of our first midfield, then there would be a lot of pressure on guys to have to pick up where the other guys left off," he said. "But fortunately, our losses were distributed. We still return two-thirds of our starting attack and two-thirds of our starting defense and our top four scorers in the midfield. … We're just returning enough guys at every position that there's just confidence."