Brown, one of last fall’s Ivy League co-champions in men’s action, is hoping a spring trip to the Iberian Peninsula helps the team maintain its recent success.

The Bears spent the last week of March on a trip to Spain, spending time in both Barcelona and Madrid, touring and scrimmaging as part of spring preparations.

While much of the trip was about taking in the sights and sounds of one of world soccer’s premier countries, it also has extreme significance for a Brown team very much in rebuilding mode.

“We are really trying to develop our identity for the 2012 season,” head coach Pat McLaughlin told TopDrawerSoccer.com. “We graduate 8 players who have all been starters at various times in their career at Brown. The younger players are getting the chance to play in a very competitive environment against great competition and to take more leadership of the team.”

Brown finished tied for first in the Ivy League regular season standings with Dartmouth last year, both boasting an identical record of 4-1-2 within the division. After the successful regular season, the Bears nearly made it to the NCAA quarterfinals, coming up just short in a third round matchup against St. Mary’s(m) in overtime.

That makes the spring as important as ever, and without question the trip to Spain provided a stiff test. The team spent a few days in Madrid, getting the chance to play teams from Rayo Vallecano and Atletico Madrid. After that, they traveled to Barcelona, where they drew 2-2 against a U20 team from BK Hacken (Sweden).

While Brown loses All-Ivy selections like TJ Popolizio, Rob Medairos and Raylor Gorman, their title rivals Dartmouth face the difficult task of replacing Ivy League Player of the Year Lucky Mkosana.

Of course, with Dartmouth’s trimester schedule, the spring season is just beginning. Highlighted by a pair of international friendlies against Cape Verde and Haiti in mid-April, along with a matchup against professional club Montreal Impact’s reserves, the search for a new goal-scoring threat begins in earnest.

“When you lose a player like that – Lucky graduates as the all time leading goal scorer at Dartmouth, so you hope you have someone that can come in and beat that record again,” head coach Jeff Cook told TopDrawerSoccer.com. “Obviously it’s going to be a significant loss.”

Cook hopes that forwards like Patrick Murray, Andoni Georgiou and Alex Adelabu can form a striker-by-committee to help supplant the loss of the school’s all-time leading scorer.

With the level of changeover at Brown and Dartmouth, it opens the door wide open for other programs like Penn, Princeton, Columbia, Harvard and Yale to toss their hat in the ring.

The Quakers in particular have a dangerous look to them, and are hoping to make significant strides towards building a fall contender.

“The spring for us it’s moving the individual players along in our program, as well as trying to find out who we’re going to be as a team next season,” head coach Rudy Fuller told TopDrawerSoccer.com. “At that point we’re trying to find out what new leaders are going to emerge, how our team is going to be different based upon the returning players, what system of play might fit our guys.”

Despite the departures of Christian Barreiro and Thomas Brandt, Penn returns midfielder Duke Lacroix, the Ivy League Rookie of the Year who had a chance to impress Tab Ramos at a U.S. U20 camp recently. Along with that, Louis Schott and goalkeeper Max Kurtzman provide a stable core.

Princeton, which suffered through an uncharacteristic down year with a 0-6-1 record in the League, lost influential attacker Antoine Hoppenot as well as six other seniors is looking to bounce back in a serious way.

Most importantly in the spring, the vision for a program like Penn – like it is for all schools – is to move the group far enough along that the team has a clear starting point when players return in the fall.

“When you leave in the spring, you want to have a pretty good idea of what a starting group might look like,” Fuller said. “Preseason is really when you see how the freshmen do when they come, how quickly they can adapt, whether any of those guys can step in and play. But at least you have a starting point to work from and know that.”

Players to Watch

Duke Lacroix, Midfielder, Penn: A creative midfielder who has earned a handful of call ups to various youth national teams, Lacroix picked up Ivy League Rookie of the Year honors last fall. He’ll need to be even better than his five goals and two assists last year to help cope with the graduation of Christian Barreiro.

Kevin Dzierzawski, Midfielder, Dartmouth: Lucky Mkosana provided most of Dartmouth’s offense last year, and it was Dzierzawski who helped set up those tallies with a team leading seven assists last year. With Mkosana’s departure, Dzierzawski must take an even bigger role his senior year, in both a leadership and offensive capacity.

Ben Maurey, Forward, Brown: Graduation has decimated Brown’s scoring ranks, with the team’s three top scorers all moved on. Maurey, a 6-foot-5 forward, didn’t start a game last fall, but scored once in 15 appearances. He’ll need to play a much bigger role to help supplant the loss of leading goal scorer TJ Popolizio.