NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- Christopher Newport men's soccer will face a challenging schedule in 2021 starting with the season opener on Wednesday, September 1 and spanning 16 games through October 27. The Captains will host five home matches while the road-heavy slate also includes five neutral site contests. 

Under the direction of head coach Justin Chezem, the 22nd-ranked CNU Men's Soccer program will face six games against teams ranked in the United Soccer Coaches Division III Preseason National Rankings. Of those six, three will be played on the road and two in neutral site matchups. Adding to the difficult slate, the Captains will fly to Illinois to take on a pair of top-20 teams in Chicago and North Park in the middle of September. 

The season opens on September 1 against Dickinson College on a neutral field before the Captains open the home slate with the Steve Shaw Classic on September 4-5. In this year's edition of the Classic Tournament, CNU will face Covenant College (Ga.) and Gettysburg College over the first weekend of the season. 

After the matchup against the Bullets, the Captais will then face a six-match streak away from home. Kicking off the road trip will be back-to-back games at the University of Lynchburg and against Methodist University on September 10-11 preceding the travel to the Windy City. On Friday, September 17, CNU will face No. 19 Chicago before taking Saturday off and facing 12th-ranked North Park on Sunday, September 19. Finishing off a run of three-straight games against ranked opponents, the Captains will travel to No. 11 Washington & Lee on September 24. The six-game road swing will finish up in Charlotte, North Carolina where CNU will take on Emory University in a neutral site matchup. 

Conference play opens on October 2 when Christopher Newport returns home for the first time in nearly a month as they host No. 21 Mary Washington in Coast-To-Coast Athletic Conference action. Another neutral site matchup comes next on October 6 as CNU faces York (Pa.) in Leesburg, Va. before another home game on October 9 against St. Mary's (Md.). 

Wrapping up the matchups against preseason ranked teams, Christopher Newport will face No. 17 Johns Hopkins in a neutral site bout on October 13. The Blue Jays were 16-3-1 and won the Centennial Conference in 2019 and will face the Captains for the first time since 2010. 

Rounding out the regular season schedule, the Captains will take on Salisbury and Mary Washington in three more C2C matchups. 

Chezem returns an impressive contingent from his NCAA Tournament squad in 2019, even with the setback presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Captains were 14-2-5 and reached the second round of the NCAA Championship while featuring the best defense in program history. Defenders Davis Pillow, Daniel Hulett, and Jacob Dudley return from the unit that posted the finest goals-against average in program history. 

Offensively, CNU returns leading scorer Lincoln Kickbush after scoring 18 points on eight goals and two assists during his sophomore season. Will Collins and Cory Hogge also return after leading the offense in 2019 as will Tanner Dail, who has not appeared since 2018 due to an injury. Dail was the 2018 Capital Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year with four goals in his freshman season out of the midfield.