The Xavier Musketeers men's soccer team is an intercollegiate

varsity sports In most English-speaking countries, varsity is an abbreviation of the word ''university''. In the United States and Canada, the term is mostly used in relation to sports teams. Varsity in the United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, varsity team ...

team of

Xavier University Xavier University ( ) is a private Jesuit university in Cincinnati and Evanston (Cincinnati), Ohio. It is the sixth-oldest Catholic and fourth-oldest Jesuit university in the United States. Xavier has an undergraduate enrollment of 4,860 stud ...

. The team is a member of the

Big East Conference The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and ...

of the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

History

is a Jesuit university established in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

, Ohio in 1831. In March 1974, it was announced that a varsity soccer program would be formed at Xavier, and tryouts were held. Coached by Bob McKinney, the team played their first ever regular season match on September 21, 1974 at

Corcoran Field Corcoran Field is a 1,600-seat soccer stadium located on the campus of Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is part of the Xavier University Soccer Complex. It is home to the Xavier University men's and women's soccer teams, who compete in ...

, defeating the visiting Thomas More Rebels 3–2. They finished their inaugural fall season with a 5–7–0 record. In 1975, the team brought in its first ever class of recruits, with McKinney scouting several players from nearby high school teams. They finished the 1975 season with an 8–5–0 record. However, after finishing 1976 with a 3–4–3 record, Bob McKinney resigned as head coach. In March 1977, Xavier hired John Capurro as their new head coach. John Capurro had previously assisted his brother, Nick Capurro, in coaching the

Cincinnati Comets The Cincinnati Comets was an American soccer club based in Cincinnati, Ohio that was a member of the American Soccer League. The Comets won the ASL in 1972, led by 16-year-old Costa Rican-American midfielder Ringo Cantillo who would win Most Valua ...

, a short-lived professional team which had folded in 1975. Vince Pecoraro took Capurro's place as head coach ahead of the 1986 season. Until 1987, the Xavier men's soccer team had not been a part of any athletic conference. Xavier University had been a founding member of the

Midwestern Collegiate Conference The Horizon League is an 11-school collegiate athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, whose members are located in and near the Great Lakes region. The Horizon League founded in 1979 as the Midw ...

(MCC) since 1979, but the conference did not originally sponsor men's soccer. Xavier was one of six universities to play in the MCC's inaugural men's soccer season in 1987. In 1991, Jack Hermans replaced Pecoraro as Xavier's new head coach. In 1995, Xavier left the MCC and joined the Atlantic 10 Conference. In 2005, Dave Schureck replaced Hermans as Xavier's head coach. In 2010, Andy Fleming replaced Schureck as head coach. That year, Xavier finished with a 10–6–4 record and went on to win the Atlantic 10 Championship playoffs. This earned them an automatic bid in the

2010 NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Tournament The 2010 NCAA Division I men's soccer tournament was a tournament of 48 collegiate soccer teams who played for the NCAA Championship in soccer. The semifinals and final were held at Harder Stadium in Santa Barbara, California. All the other games ...

, the first NCAA tournament appearance in the team's history. They lost to

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the B ...

with a score of 4–2 in the first round. In 2013, Xavier left the Atlantic 10 to join the

. John Higgins followed Andy Fleming as the Head Coach of the Musketeers in March 2022. Shaun Mahoney and Ian Vickers joined Coach Higgins as associate head coach and assistant coach, respectively, in May 2022.

Roster

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Coaching staff

Record by year

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Notable alumni

References

External links

* {{Xavier University 1974 establishments in Ohio Association football clubs established in 1974