There were several positives to take away from the 2025 WVU men’s soccer season. There was also the feeling of some missed opportunities.
In the end, the Mountaineers went exactly as far as they did in 2024. They won the same number of games, 13. They ended the year in the second round of the NCAA tournament, having won one game before going out to a seeded foe. That’s a sign of consistency, an important step for any program to succeed long-term.
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West Virginia fans can now expect several things from Dan Stratford’s men. The Mountaineers will win more games than they lose. They will put a lot of shots on goal, and they’re going to finish in the top half of the Sun Belt Conference. And most years, the season’s going to end in the NCAA tournament.
Now the challenge is having consistent success when they get there. That’s a much tougher ask.
West Virginia Didn’t Spread Its Scoring
The Mountaineers clearly sent the offense flowing through two top players: Marcus Caldeira and Pablo Pozos. West Virginia men’s soccer scored 45 goals on the year, and Caldeira and Pozos combined for 25 of them.
This year, that worked for the most part. But that puts pressure on the Mountaineers for next year, because Caldeira will be gone. Pozos still has one more year, and Stratford can run the offense through him. But he needs to get a second scorer to take pressure off Pozos. Isaac Scheer is the only other potential returner with more than one goal to his name, and if teams can focus on Pozos, West Virginia will struggle.
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This could be a situation where Stratford has to hit the transfer portal to find the right piece. Good scorers can take time to develop, and with Pozos having just one season left, the Mountaineers need to make the most of it. Who joins him up top will tell a lot about West Virginia men’s soccer in 2026.
Did Teams Adjust to West Virginia?
College soccer is very different than professional soccer in that there’s usually only one shot at any given team per year. In professional leagues in Europe, every side plays every side twice. West Virginia only sees this happen when it faces a team in a tournament setting.
The Mountaineers did that three times in 2025, facing Old Dominion, Marshall and High Point twice. Each time, the Mountaineers gave up more goals in the second meeting.
Old Dominion and Marshall were particularly galling for the Mountaineers because they kept clean sheets against both the first time. In the second meeting, the Monarchs and the Thundering Herd combined for four goals in regulation and five overall. High Point did similar work, scoring twice in the regular season and three times in knocking West Virginia out of the NCAA tournament.
That can result in one of three major conclusions. First, tournament soccer simply works differently than regular season soccer, because of increased levels of desperation. That’s a fair argument, and it’s supported by St. John’s scoring three times in the Mountaineers’ first-round win. The Red Storm didn’t play West Virginia in the regular season, so they didn’t have a chance to figure them out with experience.
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Second, teams adjusted to the Mountaineers. Given that three teams scored two goals in the first meeting and seven in the second, that’s a reasonable possibility. Or third, the Mountaineers’ defense ran out of gas down the stretch. In its final seven matches, West Virginia kept one clean sheet and allowed 13 goals. For the year, West Virginia allowed 26 goals, so this conclusion also has legs. It also isn’t because the schedule turned tougher on the back end. The Mountaineers scheduled four tournament teams in the non-conference, and one of the scoring teams was South Carolina, which did not qualify for the Sun Belt tournament.
Whatever the reason, Stratford has to identify it and figure out how to prevent it next season. West Virginia has to be playing its best soccer in November next year.
West Virginia Missed Some Opportunities
Judging the Mountaineers on tournament play would be unfair. The NCAA tournament showed how unpredictable tournament play can be. The top three seeds in the field were Vermont, Virginia and Princeton. None won a match, getting bounced in the second round at home. Of the four College Cup teams, two were unseeded, and the others were No. 15 NC State and No. 16 Furman.
That said, West Virginia had an opportunity to win the Sun Belt regular season and couldn’t solve Kentucky in Lexington. It got to play the Sun Belt tournament at home and fell to Marshall, when a win would have allowed the Mountaineers to host the final. And West Virginia took too long to get started against High Point.
Overall, the Mountaineers have plenty to be proud about in 2025. But the chance was there to do more, because the talent is there. This team is set up for long-term success; it’s got to use this season as a learning experience.
