Wheeling, W. Va. - The Mountain East Conference (MEC) continues preparations for the 2025 Fall sports season as they go through their preseason poll schedule. On Tuesday, the conference released their annual MEC Men's Soccer Preseason Poll, ranking the eight teams across the conference as voted on by the conference's coaches. The Wheeling University Men's Soccer team took the #7 spot in this year's poll as they look to grow their youthful team into an MEC Contender.
2024 was another young year for the Cardinals, with six of their 11 starters being in their freshman season. They leaned on some of the veterans in the lineup to guide the way, and under their leadership, the Cardinals were able to improve both on their overall win total and their conference win total. They started the season with a tie against non-conference opponent California University before battling through a grueling MEC schedule. They would secure three ties through their first 10 conference games, guided by a defense that allowed two goals or fewer in nine of the team's 15 games. They picked up their first conference win since October 26th, 2022, when they beat Point Park 1-0, and the Cardinals would finish the season 2-12-4 overall and 1-10-3 in conference play.
After building a young roster over the last two seasons, the Cardinals are looking to use that experience to their advantage in 2025. The Cardinals will see all six of those freshmen starters gain another year of experience, while also bringing back some veteran leadership to lead the way. The Cardinals welcome back forward Jon-Michael Gordon, who missed the entire 2024 season due to injury. In 2023, he led the team with four goals and two assists and made the MEC's All-Freshman team. He will be joined by sophomore Jordan Taylor and junior Joergen Bjerkreim, who each earned All-MEC honors for their work a season ago. The defense will return Daniel Delo in net as they look to continue their success at holding opponents off the scoreboard.
The 2025 season will see the Cardinals get one non-conference game before diving headfirst into the MEC schedule. They will host CAL-U on September 4th in their home opener, before hitting the road for back-to-back MEC contests against West Liberty (9/7) and The University of Charleston (9/10). The Cardinals will have to be road warriors early on, playing four of their first seven games on the road. However, as they come down the stretch, they will play six of their final 10 games at Bishop Schmitt Field as they look to claim one of the top six spots in the conference to make the MEC Men's Soccer tournament. With a team that is a year older, the Cardinals are looking to continue their growth and get to the tournament for the first time since the 2022 season.
Leading the way in the 2025 MEC Men's Soccer Preseason Poll is the defending 2024 MEC Men's Soccer Champions the University of Charleston, who received seven first place votes and 49 points overall. The other first place vote in the poll went to Davis & Elkins, who finished second with one first place vote and 43 points, while Concord rounded out the poll with 35 points. The rest of the 2025 MEC Men's Soccer Poll looks like this:
1. Charleston - (7) 49
2. Davis & Elkins - (1) 43
3. Concord - 35
4. West Liberty - 27
5. West Virginia Wesleyan - 24
6. Point Park - 19
7. Wheeling - 15
8. Frostburg State - 12
The Wheeling University Men's Soccer team kicks off the 2025 season on Thursday, September 4th, when they host California University of Pennsylvania at 7 PM.
