10/27/2026

Seton Hall Pirates Men's Soccer (Big East) @ Owen T. Carroll Field (South Orange, NJ)

A return to Seton Hall for something...oddly common around NYC

James Calingo

Tags:
College Soccer, College Sports, Football, New Jersey, Outdoor Sports, Repeat Visit, Seton Hall University, Soccer

It has been OVER A YEAR since I last visited Seton Hall/Carroll Field, but I felt that it was worth a revisit¹. As a reminder, Seton Hall is a Catholic school founded by the local Archdiocese which, as a member of the Big East, is known for its basketball team. They do have other sports however, and despite those sports not having the same following that basketball does, they can claim some pretty famous alumni within the sports world (case in point: Baseball Hall of Famer Craig Biggio).

To be fully honest, there's not much to say about Seton Hall's men's soccer team: they first played in 1928, but has only gotten as far as the NCAA Quarterfinal round (twice). However, like with baseball, the school has a fairly notable alum within the soccer world: Sacha Kljestan, an American who once played for RSC Anderlecht - one of the most successful teams in Belgium.

I mentioned back at the baseball game that the nice thing about Seton Hall is that most non-basketball teams have free admission and parking. However, as many of those sports have a WAY smaller following than basketball (both on a local and national level), they often have to share facilities in somewhat untraditional ways. In this case, the team's soccer and baseball teams share a field (which is weirdly common in the NYC metro in case you haven't noticed).

Like I said last time, there's really not that much to say about the field - it's a rather basic on-campus field that more or less does its job. However, because Carroll Field was designed with BOTH sports it hosts in mind (unlike the other stadiums), the layout here is a bit more accommodating to soccer - chiefly in that instead of having one of the goal lines be one of the foul lines, the field runs more or less parallel to an imaginary line connecting first and third base. The main "soccer" stands are in what would be considered the outfield for baseball, and while they are on the "smallish" side (as neither soccer nor baseball are particularly at the school), there are chair back seats here (near the middle of the field). Also, I don't know why this is done (though it may be a visuals thing given the fact that games are broadcast online nowadays), but a group of boards obscures the view of the soccer field from the baseball stands - though they actually aren't tall enough to block the WHOLE view, so in THEORY, you could see the game from the baseball grandstand - but I still wouldn't recommend it.

To be fully honest...I'm not sure what to think of this game. Seton Hall lost 3-1 to DePaul² (with the lone Seton Hall goal coming as I was trying to park as I got held up at home and arrived late), and it seemed like there was WAY more interest in this game from the DePaul players/fans; I have my theories as to WHY this is, but I'll get into that at another time. Also, I assume the bookstore was already closed by the time the game started (if you actually needed merch for some reason), but there was a table giving away posters, magnets, and halloween bags near the entrance to the soccer stands that seemingly packed up soon after I arrived.