The 2016 SIU Edwardsville Cougars men's soccer team represented Southern Illinois University Edwardsville during the 2016 NCAA Division I men's soccer season, the school's 50th season. The Cougars were coached by Mario Sanchez. The team played their home games on Bob Guelker Field at the Ralph Korte Stadium as an affiliate member of the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC).
Preseason Fourteen players returned from the 2015 squad that won the Missouri Valley Conference Men's Soccer regular season championship. They were joined by a redshirted starting midfielder from 2013 who missed the last two seasons with injuries. All but two of the fifteen had started games for the Cougars. The returners were joined by eleven incoming freshmen and three transfer students who all started games for their previous schools. Included among the returning players were All-MVC First Team member Austin Ledbetter; Second Team members Kyle Dal Santo, Ivan Gutierrez; and Devyn Jambga; and All-Freshman Team member Keegan McHugh.
In the spring, the Cougars played two professional sides from the United Soccer League, losing to Louisville City FC and drawing with Saint Louis FC. They also faced three Division I clubs, defeating UMKC of the Western Athletic Conference, while tying Wisconsin and falling to Indiana of the Big Ten Conference.
For the fall preseason, the Cougars were scheduled to play exhibition games versus three teams that were in the 2015 NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship tournament. First, SIUE hosted the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who advanced to the third round of the tournament and ended the season ranked #8. They then traveled to the Conference USA regular season champ and 17th ranked Kentucky Wildcats. The preseason closed out with a visit from the Dayton Flyers, who led Division I in scoring last season.
On July 20, the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) released the "Watch List" of the early contenders for the 2016 Missouri Athletic Club's (MAC) Hermann Trophy, the most prestigious individual award in college soccer that is presented annually to the outstanding male and female players of the year. Among the 28 players named to the men's list was SIUE defender Austin Ledbetter, who had previously been named as a member of last season's NCAA Division I Men's All-West Region First Team.
Only four days into training the Cougars hosted 9th ranked Notre Dame in a "friendly" exhibition, While the Fighting Irish went with a different eleven in each half, the SIUE made only five substitutions, allowing the anticipated "regulars" to get game-time playing together, since seven of them are new to the program. The Cougars out-shot the Irish 5-4, while Notre Dame had more corners, 2–1. The essentially evenly matched teams walked away with a scoreless draw.
Two days after the draw with Notre Dame, the Cougars traveled to Lexington, Kentucky to face the UK Wildcats, a team that was ranked most of last season. The SIUE offense improved to the point of banging four shots off the posts, but they failed to put one inside the net. Meanwhile, the Cougar defense played in its usual stalwart manner, at the result was another 0–0 draw.
On August 18, the MVC released the 2016 Men's Soccer Preseason Poll and 2016 Men's Soccer Preseason All-Conference Team. In the poll of the MVC's seven head coaches, SIUE was picked to repeat as conference regular season champions. Cougars named to the eleven member All-Conference Team were forward Devyn Jambga, midfielder Ivan Gutierrez, and defender Austin Ledbetter.
When College Soccer News released its 2016 Preseason All-America Teams, SIUE defender and captain Austin Ledbetter was named to the Third Team.
Hero Sports News named Austin Ledbetter to its D1 Men's Soccer Preseason All-America Team 2016 Second Team.
The preseason's final exhibition was notable for six yellow cards issued on only sixteen fouls as SIUE and visiting Dayton met in a defensive struggle. The Cougars held last season's NCAA-leading scoring team to only three shots en route to the shutout win. The Flyers' defense kept the Cougars from getting off shots for much of the game before the SIUE offense started to click with a flurry of late shots. Australian forward Lachlan McLean scored in the 89th minute on a pass from Ohio State transfer Greg Solawa to wrap up the Cougars' preseason with a 1–0–2 record. SIUE's goalkeeper Kyle dal Santo had three complete-game shutouts.
On August 24, Top Drawer Soccer (TDS) released its annual Preseason Men's National Top 100 list of their top 100 Division I soccer players. SIUE defender and captain Austin Ledbetter was #53 on the list, the first Cougar listed since Matt Polster in 2014. In the TDS listing of picks as the Preseason Top 20 players in the MVC, Austin Ledbetter was #1, Devyn Jambga #7, Ivan Gutierrez #8, and Kyle dal Santo #12.
Season The regular season started on August 26.
In non-conference action, the Cougars faced nine opponents from eight conferences. Most of those teams were coming off of successful 2015 seasons, including the Big Ten's regular season champion Ohio State Buckeyes. In addition to travelling to Columbus, SIUE visited Butler in Indianapolis, the Memphis Tigers, and Xavier in Cincinnati. In home games, the Cougars played host to Northern Illinois, Valparaiso, Cal State Northridge, Lipscomb, and IUPUI.
The MVC schedule expanded this season from six to eight games, with each school playing a home-and-home series against two others. SIUE played home and away games versus the Bradley Braves and Loyola Ramblers. The Cougars hosted the Drake Bulldogs and Missouri State Bears and went on the road to face the Central Arkansas Bears and Evansville Purple Aces.
The Cougars opened the season at home, hosting the Northern Illinois Huskies, who played a very physical game, with the visitors from the Mid-American Conference racking up 14 fouls and 3 yellow cards. In the 17th minute, the normally stingy SIUE defense turned over the ball on a straight giveaway that NIU's Molina took and passed to Voss, who fired a booming shot from 25 yards out that left Dal Santo no chance for a save, and the Huskies took a 1–0 lead that held through halftime. The Cougars returned from the break fired up and working hard for a shot. When the Huskies were called for a handball inside the 18 yard box in the 57th minute, Ledbetter stepped up and fired in the penalty shot to tie the score. For the remainder of regulation time and through two extra time periods, the two offenses jockeyed to find a good shot, and the defenses turned away attack after attack. After 110 minutes, the game ended in a 1–1 draw.
The Monday night game versus Valparaiso of the Horizon League went into the books as a scoreless draw, but SIUE was thoroughly outplayed by the Crusaders. The Cougars' passing was frequently careless, and the team as a whole, seemed reluctant to shoot the ball. After having a man sent off in the 60th minute and playing a man short for 50 minutes, Valpo still outshot the home team 14–9, even with the Cougars taking seven corner kicks. After three exhibition games and two double-overtime games, the SIUE offense has managed only one goal (the PK in the NIU game was scored by a defender).
The trip to Indianapolis for a Saturday night game against the Big East's Butler ended in disappointment. The Cougars did have more corner kicks with 6 to the Bulldogs' 5. but they also had more fouls (18–8) and yellow cards (2–0). Butler had 18 shots to SIUE's 7 and led 6–1 in shots-on-goal. The home team took the lead on a rebounded blocked shot put into the net in the 26th minute. The Cougars managed to then hold off the hosts until only a minute and a quarter remained, when a shot was snaked into the corner of the net from 20 yards out.
Cal State Northridge's visit to SIUE was moved to an hour earlier to try to avoid weather, but lightning delayed things almost to the original start time. The Matadors fouled a Cougar hard inside the box in the 5th minute. setting up Ledbetter's second PK goal of the season for the early Cougar lead. Twenty minutes into the game, there was another stoppage for lightning and another 1/2 hour delay. After the lightning delays, a shortened halftime was planned, until the power went out for the entire SIUE campus. Once the second half started, the game played out to the end. CSUN pressed and pressed the attack, out-shooting the Cougars 13 to 8, but the home team's defense turned away attack after attack, and Dal Santo made six saves in addition to preventing own-goals by corralling balls headed by Cougars that went off the post and the crossbar. After trying every two-man pairing from among six players for a two-striker offense, Coach Sanchez returned the Cougars to a single-striker setup; although they still did not score, the offense was more of a threat as SIUE picked up the first win of the season.
On a Tuesday night at Memphis, the Cougars initially looked like their offense was finally starting to click when Solawa drove down the field and crossed a pass into the box, where Jambga slotted it past the Tigers' keeper for the season's first SIUE score from the field and the 1–0 lead in the 12th minute. After falling behind, the hosts from the American Athletic Conference shifted into a higher attack gear. Memphis took shot after shot, nut the Cougar defense and keeper Dal Santo held firm well into the second half. Although Memphis committed more fouls and was given four second-half yellow cards, it was SIUE who was called for a foul inside the box, setting up the penalty kick that tied the game in the 77th minute. Having never won at Memphis, the Cougars would have settled for a draw, but, as the clock wound down, the Tigers took a shot off a crossing pass, and the SIUE block was directed past Dal Santo with only nine seconds left in the game.
The match against Lipscomb of the Atlantic Sun Conference was a contest of defenses with the two squads managing to get off only three shots in the first half. The Cougars picked up the pace in the second half, but the Bisons' keeper made four of his six saves to hold the home team scoreless. SIUE's defense turned away everything sent at them, but made a bad habit of clearing the ball over the end line to set up Lipscomb corner kicks. The game was still scoreless with less than two minutes remaining in the second extra period when the Bisons set up for their eighth corner of the game. Cougar defenders turned away two Lipscomb headers, but the final clearance rebounded off a charging Bisons forward, falling into the net past a stunned Dal Santo.
The Cougars opened their MVC schedule on a Saturday night in Chicago at #17 Loyola in a battle of the top two defenses in the conference. As expected, both defenses repeatedly turned back their opponents' offenses. The game was scoreless into the 76th minute, when a Ramblers forward got his cleats on a perfectly placed crossing pass only five feet in front of the goal mouth for what would be the only score of the game. SIUE had two near misses at tying the score, including a Jambga shot off the post, but Loyola remained the only unbeaten, untied team in Division I.