Binghamton University’s women’s soccer team was picked to tie for fourth in the America East preseason coaches poll, the same spot they finished in last season. Whether or not that placement is justified should be decided over a rigorous non-conference slate of nine games, which will include the grand opening of the new Bearcat Athletic Center.

The season kicks off tonight with the first of back-to-back tournaments, taking on Northeastern and host Akron at the Westfield Cup. After another tournament in Niagara, the Bearcats will head to Florida, where they will wrap up the road trip against Miami. The game will be their first against an ACC school.

‘We always look to challenge ourselves with our non-conference schedule,’ said head coach Jeff Leightman. ‘If you just play cupcakes leading up to conference play, you never need to find out who you are as a team. If we’re beating up on teams 5-nil, we will never find our weaknesses.’

That challenge continues after the six-game road trip, when the team christens the brand new $3.6 million facility with a showdown against their Big East rivals from up I-81, the Syracuse Orange at 7 p.m. on Sept. 18.

The new field, still only partially completed, will feature seating for 2,534, along with two synthetic turf fields and lights allowing Bearcat soccer to go on after dark at home for the first time ever.

‘Once we get the bleachers and the press box, and the lights put in, I think it’s going to be a fantastic facility,’ Leightman said. ‘We are very excited to start a new era of soccer at Binghamton.’

That new era comes to a team that over the past two seasons won nine straight home games at one point. Many players attributed this fact not just to being home, but also to the fact that the Bearcats played on a muddy grass field full of duvets and other pitfalls, rather than a turf field. Leightman for one does not seem too concerned about these changes.

‘I think any time you change surface on your home field there is going to be an adjustment period,’ he said. ‘But it’s not just the surface. I think it’s that this is our home and having the attitude that ‘we are not losing at home.’ It’s more than just the surface.’

The test gets greater after Syracuse, when BU hosts 2006 NCAA tournament field Long Island University. LIU will be the second tournament team the Bearcats face, as they are scheduled to take on Niagara next week.

The hope is that the non-conference schedule will leave the team prepared for America East play, starting Sept. 30 at New Hampshire. Every team in the AE looks improved, so it will matter what happens during this non-conference stretch: whether the offense steps up or not, whether Erin Iman adjusts to life as the starting goalkeeper and whether the team adjusts to the new facility.

These next few weeks will help indicate whether the Bearcats will be at the top, the bottom or, as the case has been for the past two seasons, the middle of the conference.