Thursday, August 24, 2023
Rider Broncs (0-0-0) vs. Seton Hall Pirates (0-0-0)
Location: South Orange, NJ – Owen T. Carroll Field
Kickoff: 6:56 p.m.
Live Video: FloSports
Live Stats: StatBroadcast

What You Need To Know
- The Rider University men's soccer team opens the 2023 season on Thursday at Garden State foe Seton Hall.
- The Broncs are playing their first game under first-year Head Coach Chad Duernberger. Duernberger comes to Rider following five seasons as an assistant at Dartmouth. He replaces Charlie Inverso, who retired following 12 seasons at the helm, leading the Broncs to three MAAC Championships.
- The game will begin at 6:56 p.m., or 18:56 in military time. The Pirates start most of their home games at this time to honor the founding of Seton Hall in 1856.
- Rider returns 2021 MAAC Offensive Player of the Year Zaki Alibou following an injury-riddled 2022 campaign that saw him play just 87 minutes in two games due to injury. In 2021, he led the Broncs with 10 goals and five assists, helping Rider to the MAAC Final.
- Adel Al Masude leads a group of four returning starters, along with Babacar Diene, Jack McGeechan and Tom Skrocki. Al Masude tied for the team lead with Lenny Cidolit at three goals and four assists last season. Diene also tied for the team lead with three goals last season, while McGeechan contributed three assists.
- The Broncs are in a period of transition in goal, with Ben Collins being the only returner to see action in net for Rider (three games off the bench in 2022). Diesel Fiore was also on the roster last season, while Adam Salama enters competition following a season at Ottawa University, an NAIA school in Arizona.
- Rider was picked eighth in the MAAC Preseason Coaches Poll.
- The Broncs and Pirates met for the 28th time in 2022, a 3-0 Seton Hall win in South Orange. The Pirates stopped Rider's three-match winning streak and cut the Broncs' lead in the all-time series to 16-10-2.
- Seton Hall was picked fourth of six teams in the Big East's East Division, behind Georgetown, Providence and St. John's, and ahead of UConn and Villanova.
- The Pirates are coming off their second NCAA Tournament berth in three seasons in 2022, a year which saw them finish 7-4-7 (4-1-5 BIG EAST). Seton Hall's 17 points in conference action netted them the No. 2 seed in the BIG EAST Tournament, the program's best finish in the regular season standings since 1991.
- The Broncs qualified for the MAAC Championships in nine-straight seasons before missing the field in 2022. Rider won MAAC Championships in 1997, 1998, 2015, 2016 and 2018, while finishing as runner up in 2004, 2017 and 2021.