Spring is a time for renewal, and the Notre Dame men’s soccer team plans to take full advantage of the season.

As they look to rebound from a disappointing second-round exit in the 2009 NCAA Championship tournament, the Fighting Irish hope a rigorous spring training schedule will help prepare them for another tough campaign in 2010.

Their spring schedule includes games against MLS teams Columbus Crew and Chicago Fire in March, Indiana and Butler universities in April, and a showdown against Mexico’s U21 National Team on April 23 in South Bend. The Irish will travel to Sweden in May, where they play six games in two weeks against Swedish professional outfits.  

Is this too much, too soon for a team that will need fresh legs come the NCAA tournament in December? For Head Coach Bobby Clark, the answer is a resounding “No.”

While the college soccer season doesn’t officially begin until the fall, the offseason is vital for teams like Notre Dame who hope to compete for a national title later in the year. Clark has his squad fit and hungry, and he knows this is the time to get a head start on the rest of the pack.

“We work very hard in the offseason,” he said. “Winter and spring is when all the teaching gets done, and it’s where we make the biggest strides as a team.

“It’s important because we use this time to train and set the tone and personality of our team. If you want to try some tactics different from what you used last year, this is when you test them,” Clark added. “You don’t want to be tampering too much once the season starts. Every team has a lot of questions at this point in the year, and this is the time to answer those questions so you’re ready to play in August.”

While the Irish would like to get good results out of their spring games, Clark knows their win-loss record won’t count until the fall. All he wants to see right now is good soccer.

“The result of spring games may seem important on the day, but we have to look at the big picture,” he said. “How did we play, what did we take out of the game? What have we put into this week’s training? The key is to see that we compete in every game, that we play well. It’s also important to see how our new lads fit into what we’re trying to do.”

The “new lads” are, of course, the enrolled freshmen who are entering their second season with the team. Because the season starts so soon after freshmen arrive on campus in August, most players don’t have the opportunity to get oriented and contribute in their first year. The first offseason freshmen spend with the team is paramount to their success.     

“For the freshmen, the winter and spring are critical,” Clark agreed. “This is when they learn. Because many of them didn’t play much last year, this is their first chance to establish themselves, to stake their claim on the roster. It’s important for them to step up. We all take it very seriously. But they’re excited, and we are, too.”  

Notre Dame has an impressive group of enrolled freshman on the roster, some who were able to establish themselves early last year, and some for whom this is the first real chance.

Attacking midfielder Dillon Powers began his Notre Dame career with a splash, earning a starting role toward the end of the 2009 season. A current member of the U20 National Team, he is already considered one of the top collegiate players in the country.   

Other freshmen such as Grant Van De Casteele, Daniel O’Leary, Bob Novak, Kyle Richard and Eric Tilley have shown flashes of promise and appear ready to take on a more prominent role. The spring games will go a long way in determining how much they are able to contribute once the season starts in earnest in the fall.   

Coach Clark says he is looking forward to the challenges of the spring season, and to see how his young players respond. Considering the quality of other teams in the Big East conference – powers like Connecticut, Louisville, St. John’s(m) and South Florida – he knows that the time to get ahead is now.

“I always laugh when people say soccer season is only three months long,” Clark said. “It’s never been that way for us. The spring is a critical time – and we’ll certainly look to use it to our advantage.”