Joey Buchanan took an awful lot of shots as a defender last season. Feature or Bug for the Golden Eagles? | Credit: Marquette UniversityHELLO!If everything has gone according to plan, then youre reading this on August 6th, exactly two weeks before YOUR Marquette mens soccer team opens up the season with a home date against Oakland. It will also be two days before head coach David Korn leads his squad in an exhibition match on the road against Purdue Fort Wayne. That means were putting together this look at the 14 returning players on Korns roster with not a lot of insight available other than what we know about these guys from their past performances in Milwaukee. Thats how it goes, weve got two other fall sports to preview and with womens soccer starting the week before mens soccer, theres a schedule that we have to keep in order to get allll of our previewing in before the seasons get started.This will be just one part of our season preview package for the 2026 Marquette mens soccer season, so be sure to track down the links to the preview hub elsewhere on the page and keep checking those out to make sure youre up to speed by the time we get to that opener two weeks from now.Lets dive into what weve got on deck today, and as you might expect if youre a regular, well talk about the forwards first and move our way back through the position groups before we wrap up with the goalkeepers. Here we go!FORWARDMarquette has just two forwards returning from 2025, which at a glance sounds like a problem. Thats not necessarily wrong, as only one of them appeared in all 16 contests for Marquette and neither of them started more than nine times. The guy with nine starts and 791 minutes played last year is Mads Konrad Horgoien (#9, 510 sophomore, Trondheim, Norway), and he was MUs leading goal scorer last season with six. That ended up tying him for the team lead in points with 12, and hes now just one of two players returning with double digit points from last season. Seeing as the Golden Eagles were the least effective offense in the entire Big East last season, finishing with a league low five goals scored in conference play, getting Horgoien back in the mix is a good starting point for Korn to turn this offense around. He saw his minutes go up and up as the season went along, but youd have to think that the coaches would like to see more than half the seasons minutes played for a guy who had a shooting percentage over .300 last year.The other returning forward on the roster is the only one of the 14 returning men to appear in every match last season. Thats Antonio Costabile (#7, 511 senior, Bartlett, Illinois), who started six times in those 16 matches, but logged just 677 minutes overall. He tallied one goal and one assist to Marquettes struggling offense, and hes tied with Horgoien for the second most shots amongst returning players. Just wait til you see who theyre trailing behind. In any case, Costabiles starts came at the start of the season, and then when he was moved to the bench, his minutes fell off pretty notably. Its a little odd that both his goal and his assist last year came in a reserve role, as is Costabile losing his starting spot after starting in 16 of 17 contests as a sophomore the year before.MIDFIELDThis group is clearly led by Mateo Stoka (#6, 59 5th year, Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin), who has the second most appearances from last season amongst the returning guys at 15, and hes tied for the most starts in that group with 13. Stoka scored three times a year ago and chipped in four assists to tie for the team lead and end up as Marquettes returning leader in the helpers department. Stoka and Horgoien are the only two returning Golden Eagles to score more than twice last year, and given the offensive struggles, thats a notable contribution coming back this year. Can he boost his minutes up from 970 last year to provide a little bit more on field consistency for Marquette as theyre clearly going to have a parade of new faces contributing as well?Clayton Hamler (#22, 61 senior, Jefferson City, Missouri) played in nine matches last season and started three times. I dont know what it tells us that Hamler played all 90 minutes in all three starts and never more than 28 minutes in his other appearances, or what it tells us that two of his starts were Marquettes last two matches of the season. He hasnt turned into a regular contributor for Marquette after logging over 1,000 minutes as a freshman for David Korn at Maryville, so I dont know if this is going to be his chance to shine. Hudson Torrez (#11, 60 redshirt sophomore, Walworth, Wisconsin) and Jonathan Monreal-Herrera (#17, 56 redshirt junior, Milwaukee, Wisconsin) were in the deep bench department last year, logging 57 and 9 minutes respectively. Torrez was a redshirt freshman, so those were his first four appearances ever in Division 1, while Monreal-Herrera was a redshirt sophomore who played nearly 100 minutes for Korn the year before. Given that Marquette was clearly in need of Something Better for a lot of last seasons 1-7-0 Big East record, it seems like 2026 might not be a time for Korn and his staff to suddenly decide they can contribute.DEFENDERWe have to start this position group with Andreas Fotland (#4, 510 sophomore, Drammen, Norway), who comes in as Marquettes top returning minutes man from last season. Hes one of only two returning players to start in every one of his appearances last year well get to the other one in a second but Fotland comes in fourth in terms of total appearances. Fotland started 13 times last year he missed one after a red card suspension and ended up with just over 1,100 minutes played, which was one of just three 1,000+ totals on the squad a year ago. He also added an assist along the way, and I think we can safely slot him into a notable role on MUs defensive scheme, no matter what it is.The other started every time out guy? Tristan Ronnestad-Stevens (#5, 62 5th year, Perth, Australia), who started in all eight matches that he played in 2025. Those eight were Marquettes first eight matches of the year, and he logged over 80 minutes in every one, including going the full 90 six times. That brings us to the issue of why he missed the back half of the season, which goes back to remembering that TRS missed the entire 2024 season due to a leg injury. The fact that hes back for his final season of eligibility tells us that he should be healthy and ready to go here why come back if hes going to miss most of the season, right? which should be good news for stability in Marquettes defensive end. Can that pay off for the full campaign this year?Joey Buchanan (#25, 61 sophomore, Squamish, British Columbia) is the most interesting guy listed in the position group. Its not because of his four starts in 13 appearances as a freshman last year, which sounds pretty good, even if he didnt get to 500 minutes played. Its because of this: Buchanan finished last year at #5 on the points list, and hes now third amongst returning guys behind Mads Konrad Horgoien and Mateo Stoka. Two goals and three assists as a defender is terrific secondary scoring if you can get it, but thats not even the really interesting part. Ready? Buchanan was second overall on the roster last season and now first amongst returning guys in shots with 25. Did David Korn just have him playing out of position last year to get there? Is that a wing defender finding his way up the sideline and into advantageous positions an awful lot? Whats going on here? How can Marquette make use of this in 2026? Can Marquette make better use of Buchanans abilities in 2026?Ryan Amond (#27, 510 senior, Green Bay, Wisconsin) saw his playing time hacked way down last season, going from starting 17 times in Korns first season to playing in only 14 of 16 contests and starting just seven times. He was starting and playing big minutes early in the year and then not so much late in the season, including just five minutes in a 2-0 loss to Akron. We have to figure out what happened there before we can make any proclamations as to how Amond can contribute this year. Jack Wandschneider (#18, 64 junior, Brookfield, Wisconsin) is in something of the same position, going from 16 starts and over 1,000 minutes played as a freshman to just 10 appearances and five starts for 463 minutes in 2025. Whatever caused him to play just 10 minutes in a start against Drake in late August had him missing time for most of September, then going 86 minutes in a start in October and then 90 minutes eight days late and then Wandschneider played just 22 minutes off the bench for the rest of the season. If Korn and his staff can figure out what to do with these guys or keep them healthy if thats the issue, then that helps Marquette out in theory, because MU hasnt been very good in Korns first two seasons anyway. Floating around in all of this is Drew Mullins (#23, 59 redshirt freshman, Clearwater, Florida), who did not play in his first season on campus last season. Youd think that if the coaching staff thought he could make an impact as guys were in and out of the lineup, then they would have found playing time for Mullins, but that did not happen. Well see what happens this year, I guess?GOALKEEPERMarquette has two returning goalkeepers with 900 minutes played between the two of them. One of the keepers is Renan Salum (#31, 61 redshirt junior, So Paulo, Brazil), who has been with MU for three campaigns and has never played a minute. The other is Cameron Simpson (#1, 62 junior, Middlesbrough, England) who had two appearances as a freshman in 2024 and then eight in 2025. Simpson went from sitting behind Marten Brink at the start of last year to alternating matches with Brink starting with his season debut in MUs fourth contest of the year to playing all of MUs final three matches of last season. That makes him the incumbent starter for 2026, but I dont think that anyones looking at Simpsons 1.50 goals-against average or his .700 save percentage from his 720 minutes of action last season and saying oh, hell yes, thats our guy no matter what. Well get to it when we get to it, but Ill tell you right now: Neither of Marquettes two new goalkeepers immediately scream give them the job over Simpson, not with the obvious inconsistencies with the field defense in front of Simpson last season.Follow Anonymous Eagle on social mediaFacebook:AnonymousEagleInstagram:AnonymousEagleSBNBluesky:AnonymousEagle