Last year was a disappointing one for UNC Wilmington men’s soccer fans. The Seahawks could only muster up four total wins with all four of them coming at home and only two wins in CAA action.

“It was a pretty disappointing season for everyone,” UNCW coach Aidan Heaney said. “Our record was 4-12-2. We were a better team than that, but we just couldn’t push through our games and all of our games were close.

“We had some injuries and that definitely affected our playing, and we really didn’t gel together as a team. There was no drama or anything like that within the team; it’s just that we were all not following the same direction.”

Heaney added that not taking advantage of scoring chances on offense and not playing sound defense isn’t a good combination to winning close games. The one thing he said that they can take from last year’s performance was that they know now that they need to be more competitive, both within the team and against the opposition.

“We had a lot of emphasis on making things more competitive for next year. I want more competition in the team to make it stronger,” he said. “I think we have progressed in making things more competitive and getting everyone on the same page and making everyone more committed to what we’re doing.

“We’re going to have a lot more new faces coming in with our freshman class next year so we’ve got to mesh things a little more quickly this year. The biggest challenge is going to be getting the returning players on the same page with the new freshmen coming in.”

Two bright sports of the past season were seniors Shawn Guderian and Daniel Roberts. Guderian led the team in goals with five, and Roberts led the team in assists with five. Three players on the soccer team will be returning for their senior year and six have graduated. Both Etienne Boulanger and Thomas Driver will be coming back, but they’re going to need help, so Heaney is putting extra emphasis on this year’s recruiting class.

“We usually recruit a year ahead, so we’ve actually started recruiting for the year of 2013. We’ve got a guy coming in from Atlanta, Ga. (this upcoming season) named Jose Garcia, who I think is going to help a lot on our team next year,” he said. “The thing I like about this upcoming class is that they’re going to do really well on filling in for all of our missing players, and they’re going to do a great job stepping in.”

Heaney is relying on this class to spark competition within the program and is hoping that things will go better for next year. For next season, the Seahawks will be playing NC State in the preseason and then their first regular season game is against UNC Greensboro at home. Heaney knows the challenges that are up ahead, but he is prepared for whatever comes his way for next season.

“The league we’re in is extremely challenging, and we have to play our absolute best if we want to win the conference championship and that’s what our team can take from last year,” he said. “Even though we had a disappointing season, we know now what it takes to win more games next year.”