Salve Regina men's soccer earns national ranking

NEWPORT, R.I. - Salve Regina University men's soccer (9-0-1, 2-0-1 CCC) ranks No. 17 in the country according to a national poll powered by BennettRank and published on HEROsports.com at https://herosports.com/rankings/college-d3-mens-soccer.

The Seahawks have their best start ever to a season through 10 games (nine wins, one draw), besting the previous mark set in 2012 (nine wins, one loss).

Craig O'Rourke II, in his 12th season as head coach of the Seahawks, says, "It's nice for our program to be recognized in one of the national polls and I appreciate the time and effort that Hero Sports puts in to their computational formula in coming up with this national rank. For our program right now, we just need to be focused on taking this season one match at a time and putting forth our best soccer - both technically and tactically - each and every moment that we are on the field. With the vast majority of our conference games still remaining, this season is far from over or decided for the Commonwealth Coast Conference. However, the one thing that I don't want overlooked is that the CCC has now risen to being the fifth strongest conference in the nation for the sport of men's soccer ... that demonstrates how highly-competitive the conference, as a whole, is this year."

Salve Regina and defending conference champion Endicott drew a scoreless tie last month (Sept. 22) in Beverly, Mass. The Seahawks compete this week with non-league Johnson & Wales University on Wednesday at Toppa Field (4 p.m.) and on the road at University of New England in Biddeford, Maine, on Saturday (1 p.m.).