Mick D’Arcy has plenty to be proud of from his time coaching CCSU women’s soccer. But he doesn’t dwell on that much.

“Each year is a new beginning and I’ve always thought it best to close the book on the previous year and start fresh,” D’Arcy said.

So far, that plan seems to work well for D’Arcy and the Blue Devils. D’Arcy has coached CCSU to eight NEC Championships in his 20 year tenure including two in the past two seasons.

There are tons of stats you could pull to show how successful CCSU women’s soccer has been over the last two decades, but there is one in particular I find both trivial and mind blowing. Freshmen on the 2002 team only knew success. No, really. From 2002 to 2005, CCSU won the Championship every year. On the other side of this, an incoming freshman on any other NEC team in 2002 did not fair as well.

Before he fully closed the book on last season, D’Arcy did take a point from one chapter with him to bring along this year.

“Last year was a fantastic season on many levels,” D’Arcy said. “As a coach you always want to maximize the potential of your team and I think we did that last year.”

It’s hard to argue against that. After their first conference loss on October 3, the Blue Devils did not lose another game until the November 22.

After their run through the regular season and NEC Playoffs, the Blue Devils took down Rutgers in the NCAA Tournament before their season ended against West Virginia in a 1-0 double overtime loss.

The loss was heartbreaking, but there was still much to celebrate going forward. From then on, D’Arcy said his team knew “that we were able to compete at that level and we were good enough to advance to the Sweet 16. So this year our goal was not so much to advance further in the NCAA Tournament but to once again maximize our potential, leave it all on the field and see where that takes us.”

When asked about the possibility of “defending the title” won last year, D’Arcy explained that that is not a phrase he is a fan of. “There is a trophy in Kaiser Hall that says 2019 NEC Champions on it. We don’t need to defend it. That’s the job of Campus Security. I trust that they won’t let anyone steal it,” D’Arcy said.

While the future is uncertain as ever, D’Arcy and the Blue Devils are still hopeful that there will be a season played out in the spring. D’Arcy acknowledged the hurdles in the way of that, but trusts the dedication of his team to overcome them.

“There is a huge responsibility on our students to be socially responsible over the next few months,” D’Arcy said. “But they understand what is at stake here. They want to play. You don’t get to be an elite Division I student athlete without making sacrifices and having self-discipline. Obviously there are some factors outside of our control but we plan on doing everything we need to do so that we can compete this year.”