Wait until next year.

That is what they always say. When teams fail to live up to expectations, coaches and players always declare, just wait until next year.

For Georgetown men’s soccer team, next year has been eight years coming. Since the Hoyas made their last NCAA tournament appearance in 1997, every year has been one of almost, of might-have-been, of wait-until-next-year.

In 2005, however, next year may finally have arrived.

Coming off an 11-8-2 season in 2004 – the Hoyas’ best since they went 15-6 in 1998 – this year is full of NCAA-appearance potential for Georgetown.

“Our goals remain the same,” Head Coach Keith Tabatznik said. “We would like to win the Big East conference and, now that we are in divisions, the first goal is to try and win our division. We want to get back to the NCAA tournament.”

With eight returning starters, including the Big East preseason offensive and defensive players of the year in junior Ricky Schramm and senior Jeff Curtin respectively, the Hoyas have the maturity, talent and experience to go deep this year.

Anchoring the team on both ends of the field, Schramm and co-captain Curtin will need to set the tone for the rest of the team this season.

Schramm is the reigning Big East offensive player of the year after a standout sophomore season. In 2004 he led the Hoyas’ top-ranked offense with 13 goals and six assists, and currently ranks 10th all-time on Georgetown’s goals scored list. He will need to repeat those numbers this season to get the Hoyas back to top of the Big East.

On the defensive end of the field Georgetown will rely on center back Curtin to shut down opponents. A preseason first team All American this fall, Curtin is a four-year starter and senior co-captain for the Hoyas. Last year Curtin had five goals and an assist in 19 games from the backfield, giving him 11 career goals.

Returning with Curtin and Schramm for Georgetown’s 2005 campaign are six other starters from last year’s team. Junior Tim Convey and sophomore Richard Diaz are back on defense with Curtin, while the midfield will be anchored by an experienced group of upperclassmen, including junior Daniel Grasso and seniors Kevin Sindelar, Dan Pydo, Danny McAnally and co-captain Brent Plumley. On offense, Schramm will be joined by senior Chris Tansey and sophomore Mike Glaccum.

Although the Hoyas return most of last year’s squad, the absence of midfielders Trevor Goodrich (COL ’05) and Dan Gargan (MSB ’05) will be felt sharply on offense. Goodrich led the Hoyas with 11 assists last year and was the team’s assist leader three of his four years on the Hilltop. Gargan was Georgetown’s MVP last season with 15 points and the Hoyas will have to find players to support Schramm this year without Goodrich and Gargan.

Filling the void for the Hoyas are eight freshmen who, even before the season has begun, have impressed their coaches and teammates. Called “quite simply one of the best recruiting classes we have ever had” by Tabatznik in a press release last spring, these newcomers will have an immediate impact this year, either in starting positions or by adding depth to the Hoyas.

“I’m very happy with the new class,” Tabatznik said this week. “Quite a number of them are going to be able to contribute real soon, if not right away. I think the overall level has certainly been picked up by the new class, the overall strength and depth of the team. They are really helping.”

All the new faces have led to a lot of new players in new positions for the Hoyas, which the players admit takes some time to get used to.

“In the midfield we’ve been playing with a couple freshmen and they’ve been adapting pretty well,” Plumley said. “They are quick to make the adjustment to playing college. We are pretty young in the midfield.”

Freshmen will likely see playing time early because of offseason injuries to returning players. Last year’s starters Pydo, Grasso and Diaz are all currently injured and their availability for the start of the season remains questionable.

“We obviously want everyone to be 100 percent healthy, but that’s not always going to happen,” Tabatznik said. “One of the only ways that you can win in college soccer at the high levels is to have enough depth to cover for injuries . I think we have a deep enough squad that we should be able to win no matter what.”

Starting lineups for this weekend are still in question because of the injuries. Whether players can start or not – and how many minutes they can play – will determine who plays where.

“We have a lot of new faces, but I think we’ll be ready for the upcoming year,” Curtin said.

The upcoming year will not be an easy one for the Hoyas. Playing in the expanded Big East and with a challenging non-conference schedule, the Hoyas will face seven teams in the top 25, including both No. 12 Virginia Commonwealth and No. 13 Santa Clara next weekend at the University of Maryland Tournament. Later in the season the Hoyas will take on four top-25 teams in 10 days – No. 25 Seton Hall, No. 4 Maryland, No. 19 Notre Dame and No. 14 Creighton – the latter three all at home. The Hoyas will need to pick up victories in at least a few of those games if they hope to advance further than they did in 2004.

Last year Georgetown advanced to the Big East semifinals, taking No. 21 Seton Hall into a scoreless overtime before a goal by Pirate sophomore midfielder Sacha Kljestan ended the Hoyas’ season with a 1-0 loss. In 2002, Georgetown was again eliminated from the semifinals by Boston College.

Earlier in the season the Hoyas fell to ranked opponents in tight matches. In September Georgetown lost to both No. 3 Maryland and No. 14 Penn State at the University of Maryland Tournament in close games that could have gone the other way. They later fell to No. 4 Notre Dame and No. 5 St John’s in conference play.

Those early season losses got Georgetown off to a 3-5 start, which forced the team to spend the rest of the year climbing out of a hole. Even a five-game win streak in early October could not save the Hoyas’ season and the team, as has been the case often in recent years, fell just short of where it needed to be.

“We lost a couple games right at the wire and had we won one or maybe two of those games we would have been in [the NCAA tournament],” senior midfielder Kevin Sindelar said.

Tabatznik said he hopes that the team will not repeat the same mistakes this year and use its experience from early last season as this one gets underway. Endurance and fitness were emphasized in the offseason to get the players off to the right start and in condition to play overtime games.

“We have a very big focus on trying to have a better start to the season,” he said. “We always tend to play our best in October but we need to start at a higher level. We don’t really have any choice. To make it into the tournament we have to be ready right from the beginning.”

For the Hoyas, the season begins today. Georgetown will play host to Howard University at 2:30 p.m. this afternoon on North Kehoe in the first round of the D.C. College Cup. Play in the tournament will continue on Sunday when the Hoyas play host to the American University Eagles, again at 2:30 p.m. on North Kehoe.