BOSTON - After winning its first outright men's soccer regular-season title a year ago, Albany is the America East preseason favorite in 2016, the conference office announced Thursday. Preseason poll voting was conducted by the conference’s eight head coaches, who were not permitted to vote for their own teams.
Albany, which returns 16 letterwinners and nine starters from last year's squad, received five first-place votes and totaled 47 points. Reigning champion Vermont picked up two first-place tallies and 43 points to place second. That Catamounts won their first America East title since 2007 last year. UMBC, winner of four of the last six league titles, earned the last first-place vote and was third with 39 points. Here is the full poll:
2016 #AEMSOC Preseason Coaches' Poll
1. Albany (5), 47 pts
2. Vermont (2), 43
3. UMBC (1), 39
4. New Hampshire, 30
T-5. Binghamton, 18
Stony Brook, 18
7. Hartford, 17
8. UMass Lowell, 12
Once of the most competitive men's soccer conference's in the country, America East joined the ACC, Big Ten and Conference USA as the only conferences with at least seven programs ranked in the top 100 of the RPI last year. America East teams have advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament in 11 of the last 15 seasons and in 2014, UMBC became the conference's first team to reach the NCAA College Cup and finished the season ranked fourth in the country.
The men's soccer season kicks off Friday, Aug. 26 with all eight America East programs in action.