The No. 24 Georgetown men’s soccer team (9-3-4, 4-2-1 Big East) will return to the friendly confines of North Kehoe Field at 2 p.m. Wednesday to take on Pittsburgh (4-11-1, 2-5 Big East). The Hoyas are fresh off a draw against top-ranked Connecticut (13-1-2, 4-1-2 Big East) last Saturday.

Head Coach Brian Wiese was satisfied with the result but noted that his team was most certainly not playing for the tie.

“The plan wasn’t to go in and defend and get a 0-0 draw. Both teams needed and wanted a win,” Wiese said. “But in the bigger picture, it is a good result. Not many teams are able to get out of Storrs, [Conn.] with [any points].”

With the tie, Marquette can now clinch the Big East’s Blue Division if it wins the rest of its games, but Georgetown would still be in the running with a victory over Pitt.

The Panthers are currently sitting at second-to-last in the division, and they would need a win Wednesday to keep their chances of earning a Big East tournament berth alive.

“It’s an important game for them and a huge game for us,” Wiese said. “We haven’t quite given up the crown yet, but in order to have any hope of it we have to win.”

Thus far sophomore midfielder Nico Wrobel has led the Panthers offensively, netting five goals off only 19 shots for an impressive .263 shot percentage. Freshman goalkeeper Lee Johnston has also been solid in net, allowing only 1.06 goals per game in 12 games played.

Still, though, the Panthers are last in the Big East in goals per game with 0.76 and do not rank much better in goals against, sitting at 12th in the league with 1.49 per game. But despite the stat line, Wiese is still expecting a challenge on Wednesday.

“In this league, everybody beats everybody. It’s a mess. They’re tough, they look to play and are an organized group; they just haven’t been getting results,” he said. “Their games are always tough; they don’t make it easy.”

The Blue and Gray will try to capitalize on opportunities and put some goals home against the Panthers. However, they do have a stellar defense to fall back upon. The Hoyas’ defense ranks third in the Big East, allowing an average of 0.81 goals this year.

A big part of that defense is redshirt senior centerback Ben Slingerland, who has taken, to say the least, an unorthodox road in becoming an integral part of the Hoyas’ lineup.

Hailing from Beverly, Mass., outside of Boston, Slingerland — or “Sling,” as his teammates and coaches call him — achieved much in high school at St. John’s Prep. During his senior season in 2006, Slingerland led the Eagles to a Massachusetts State Championship while earning a slew of accolades that included the Massachusetts Gatorade player of the year award and NCSAA/Adidas All-American honors.

Despite his high school glories, Holy Cross was the only Division I university to offer Slingerland a scholarship, but he decided to forgo the scholarship and come to Georgetown as a preferred walk-on.

Slingerland also sacrificed playing time by coming to the Hilltop. He redshirted his freshman year and mostly rode the bench in his sophomore and junior campaigns.

“[You go] from being the man in high school to being just a guy here who is on the bench,” said Slingerland, who considered transferring after his freshman year. “It was hard mentally, [but] I’ve always worked hard my whole life, kept at it and never got too down.”

“To his credit, he stuck with it,” Wiese said of his defender. “That kind of patience from a competitive kid was incredible.”

Slingerland’s perseverance first started paying off in the spring of his freshman year, when he impressed his coaches at practice. This carried over to spring practices the next year, as he won the points competition that Wiese holds annually.

The centerback finally got his chance last year when Wiese inserted him into the starting lineup against Cincinnati in an attempt to right the ship after a 2-3-1 start. The Hoyas lost the game, but their season turned around afterwards and they went on to win nine games in a row en route to a finish in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Slingerland was recognized for his hard work and contribution when he received the “most improved” award at the team’s banquet at the end of the year.

“We made a decision and said ‘let’s put in Sling.’ ” He’s tough, he’s competitive and he knows what he’s doing,” Wiese said about his thought process at the time. “[Ben] is one of those great feel-good stories of a kid who just persevered,” Wiese said of his veteran leader.

Ben has remained a staple of the Hoyas’ defense this year and an integral part of their success. He will graduate this coming spring, but that does not necessarily mean his soccer career will be over.

This past summer, Slingerland and his former teammate and roommate Seth C’De Baca (COL ’11) played for the DC United U-23 team along with some of the best college players in the country. The team went undefeated, and Slingerland and a few others earned the rights to practice alongside United’s first team.

“That was a crazy experience. It was honestly the best team I’ve ever played for,” Slingerland said. “It takes this level and makes it look slow.”

But if playing soccer is not in the future equation, Ben would still love to remain around the sport — his dream job is to become a general manager for a professional team. He is in the Sports Industry Management program at Georgetown and even had an internship at the Nike headquarters in Oregon two summers ago.

For now, though, the walk-on from Boston is focused on the season ahead.

“Of all the teams I’ve been a part of here, this team has the most potential,” Slingerland said. “I am expecting a very good run into the postseason.”