The Bowdoin men’s soccer team finished its season with two losses against Williams and Tufts, putting the Polar Bears out of the running for the NESCAC championship. The team finished the season tied for ninth place in the NESCAC, finishing only ahead of Trinity, which failed to win a single game against any NESCAC opponent.

The season was defined by draws and hard-fought, neck-and-neck losses. Of the five games the team gave up this season, three of them were lost by one goal—and all of those three losses came from second half or overtime goals. If the NESCAC didn’t feature an overtime period, Bowdoin would have drawn seven out of 10 games it played. These close margins of defeat suggest thatBowdoin’s failure to qualify for the NESCAC tournament does not indicate a lack of ability but rather an inability to close out games or get the go-ahead goal.

However, the team has much to look forward to next season. Bowdoin’s top three goal scorers—Charlie Ward ’22, Drake Byrd ’21 and Matt Uek ’22—will all be returning next season, as will promising first-year goalkeeper Michael Webber ’23, who had an .848 save percentage, one of the best in the NESCAC.

It remains to be seen how Head Coach Scott Wiercinski plans on improving the team’s ability to finish out games, but he can be reassured by the quality of the underclassmen’s game and the relatively low number of graduating seniors. Although recruiting remains a crucial part of building a successful season, there will be plenty of time over the off-season for the current juniors, sophomores and first years to improve their chemistry.

Whether the soccer team can improve upon its season of brutally close losses and frustrating draws to turn such results into wins will be dependent on how the team develops in the months to come.