BOONE, N.C. — Appalachian State University men's soccer head coach Jason O'Keefe announced the 2016 schedule on Tuesday, his first official slate of matches at the helm of the program.
The schedule features five home matches and is highlighted by matchups with nine top 100 teams from 2015 and three in the top 25, including traveling to take on last year's top-ranked Wake Forest on Sept. 6. The Demon Deacons made it to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division I Championship before falling 2-1 to Stanford. The Mountaineers have faced Wake Forest 23 times with the most recent coming in a 4-0 loss in 2012.
Appalachian will also welcome top-25 program Coastal Carolina to the Sun Belt Conference in the fourth-ever meeting between the two teams on Oct. 19. The Chanticleers finished No. 21 in the nation and fell in the NCAA tournament to the then-ranked No. 6 North Carolina Tar Heels, 2-1, in the second round. The Mountaineers will also travel two hours to play Charlotte, who finished last year ranked 25th nationally, on Nov. 1.
“We're really excited about the schedule that we've put together,” O'Keefe said. “It's a good balance of some top teams in the country and then some regional rivalries as well. With nine of the top 100 from last year and five 2015 NCAA tournament teams, we're going to need a kind of road warrior mentality which will hopefully give us a more battle-tested makeup once we get into conference play.”
After a Black and Gold Scrimmage and two exhibition matches, the Mountaineers kick off the 2016 season on a five-match road trip that begins in Ohio on Aug. 26 against Cincinnati. Appalachian then moves in-state to play Bowling Green two days later before heading back to the southeast to play former Southern Conference foe ETSU on Sept. 3. The road trip will end after facing Wake Forest when App State takes on Marshall on Sept. 10.
The regular-season home opener comes on Sept. 13 against USC Upstate. The Mountaineers are 34-11-3 in home-openers. With a short one-off travel game against Longwood on Sept. 17, Appalachian State returns home to face Winthrop on Sept. 20. Appalachian's first back-to-back homestand will come in October after traveling to Davidson (Sept. 24) and UNC Asheville (Sept. 27), when the Black and Gold take on Presbyterian on Oct. 4 and face Howard, their first Sun Belt Conference opponent of the season, on Oct. 8.
“Being able to go up against two-time defending Sun Belt champion Hartwick and now adding the excellent, top-25 program Coastal Carolina really shows you how competitive our league is,” O'Keefe continued. “The Sun Belt is a league where you can't take a night off and we're excited to see how we stack up with the best. Our schedule provides a really great opportunity for us to see where we're at and how we've grown since last year.”
In a rematch of the 2015 Sun Belt Championship semifinal, App State will travel to take on Hartwick on Oct. 15. Then-No. 1 seed Hartwick took on then-No. 4 seed Appalachian in a wild contest that featured two yellow cards and a standing-room-only crowd in Boone, N.C. The Hawks would find the back of the net in the 67th minute and go on to win 1-0, but not before a rivalry was born between the two teams.
The Mountaineers round out the year with a four-match road trip that begins in Atlanta, Ga. against Georgia State (Oct. 22) before heading to Campbell (Oct. 25), Charlotte and longtime rival Georgia Southern (Nov. 5) for the season finale before the 2016 Sun Belt Championship takes place on Nov. 10-13 in Atlanta, Ga.
