Head coach Tony Guinn and the UW-Whitewater Men’s Soccer team’s season came to a close in the second round of the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) tournament in a matchup with UW-Eau Claire Friday, Nov. 8. 

Guinn’s 2024 squad finished with a record of 10-7-4. The record is slightly worse than the Warhawks 2023 record of 13-1-5. 

“We had difficulty scoring goals,” Guinn said. “That can always come back and haunt you – when you don’t score enough goals. We had opportunities to score, we just didn’t finish those opportunities.”

Guinn did add however, that he felt the team started to find its stride midway through the season with their 3-0 win against Millikin. Whitewater finished the season with a record of 5-2-1 following that matchup. 

Four Warhawks were named to the All-WIAC Men’s Soccer Team, including sophomore defender Hayden Saul, sophomore midfielder Aidian Martin, junior forward Cooper Re and freshman forward James Kiraly, all returning players for Whitewater, which gives Guinn reasons to be optimistic.

“We had a freshman in James Kiraly … for the amount of time he played, he actually scored a goal for every 40 minutes he played,” he said. “I think that is a good sign going forward, we have a good nucleus of guys coming back.”

On the other hand, Whitewater’s 2024 roster included eight senior members who will be moving on from the program. For many of these seniors, their collegiate career included a 2020-21 COVID season. Guinn said he thinks it is a big accomplishment for all of the student-athletes who chose to stay for their fifth year of eligibility and stay loyal to the program. 

“I think that says a lot – the fact that the majority of them came back for their fifth year – I think that that can get overlooked and it shouldn’t get overlooked by people in this university that these kids stuck around for a fifth year and so did a lot of athletes on this campus because they were loyal to this university,” he said. “Those kids deserve a big thank you … from the school for that dedication and for that loyalty, because that is something they chose to do.”

This off-season Guinn will be tasked with replacing the talents and qualities of the departing athletes. He said he is aware that recruiting is much different than it was even just a couple years ago. 

“With the new changing landscape of college athletics, the transfer portal will be a vital part of all college teams these days,” he said. 

As far as Guinn’s perspective on transfers going into the upcoming off-season, he said Whitewater men’s soccer is “going to be all about it.”

“All our goalkeepers graduated so we’re going to need to find in the future a goalkeeper or several goalkeepers … we need to find guys that can score goals … that’ll come either from recruiting or the transfer portal. Those are the biggest needs we have, because we graduated everyone in that area.”

With the transfer portal becoming a prominent factor in all levels of collegiate athletics, one concern of Guinn’s is getting players to continue to stay loyal to the university and make it a priority to stick around.

“All you can do is try to create a really good culture and try to create a really good team morale and I’m not really sure if you can do anymore because, I know Division One coaches who have done literally everything that can for the kid and they still come to their door at the end of the season and say they’re entering the transfer portal.”

This off-season will be vital for the UW-Whitewater Men’s Soccer team, but Guinn said he does believe the future is positive.