This weekend, the men’s soccer team will face-off against two of its strongest non-conference competitors.

The Bulldogs will take on Adelphi on Friday and Southern Methodist University on Sunday in Providence, R.I. in a tournament hosted by Brown.

This will be the first time since 2004 that the Elis (0–0–1) will compete in the Brown Tournament. In the past decade, Yale has performed well at the tournament, defeating two former NCAA champions, Indiana and North Carolina.

So far this season, Adelphi (1–0–1) has defeated Fordham by a goal and tied Georgetown in a scoreless match.

“Adelphi will be a really competitive team,” captain and midfielder Jordan Raybould ’10 said. “They always play at high energy, and high pressure with their midfielders.”

Coming into the tournament, SMU (1–1–0) went down against Akron, 0–1, before crushing Seattle by a 4–0 score.

“They’re going to be a very organized team,” Raybould said. “It’s going to be a tough game.”

Since last weekend’s 1-1 tie with Quinnipiac, the Bulldogs have been concentrating on strengthening their defensive zone.

“We’ve been playing too much man-to-man,” Raybould said. “That’s not really in our scheme, so we’re trying to narrow the space between defenders and shifting as a team down the field.”

Andy Shorten ’11 added, “We’re feeling very prepared after a week of tough, hard practices. We’ve been going over scouting reports and doing all that we need to do to explore our weaknesses, especially defensive drills. Hopefully it works out this weekend.”

Regardless of this weekend’s result, both games will help prepare the Bulldogs for Ivy League play.

“They’re definitely going to be a similar atmosphere, especially since we’re playing at Brown,” Raybould said. “Adelphi should have a similar flavor to an Ivy game. It’ll be a lot of pressure, very physical. It’s a good test of what we’ll see later in the season.”