ROLLA, Mo. – A return trip to Springfield is in store for Missouri S&T's men's soccer team, as it will seek to avenge a loss Wednesday night to Drury when it takes on the Panthers again in the opening round of the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament. Game time is at 2:30 p.m. at Harrison Stadium on the Drury campus.
The Panthers, ranked 24
th in this week's National Soccer Coaches Association of American rankings, got a goal from Nick Ammann in the 83
rd minute of play Wednesday to come away with a 1-0 win over S&T in the regular season finale. That win allowed Drury to hang onto the No. 2 seed for the conference tournament and landed the Miners with the seventh seed – thus bringing the two teams back together four days later.
Over the last seven games – five of which were S&T wins – the Miners have allowed only three goals and have recorded four shutouts in that span. As a result, they have lowered their team goals against average to 1.19 on the year as goalkeeper
James Holloway (Cape Girardeau, Mo./Notre Dame Regional) brings a goals against average of 1.05 into Sunday's game. Holloway has also recorded seven shutouts and 69 saves this season.
The Miners' top scorer heading into Sunday's match is
Eduardo Abichabki (Sao Jose do Rio Pardo, Brazil/Colegio Unigrau), who has four goals and five assists for 13 points.
Martin Klevjer (Trondheim, Norway) has scored twice with three assists for seven points, while
Maxi Fuchs (Munich, Germany) and
Mitch Morris (O'Fallon, Mo./Fort Zumwalt West) have also tallied a pair of goals this season.
Drury comes into the game with the GLVC's third-leading offensive attack, as it is averaging 2.29 goals per game. Alec Nagel leads Drury in scoring with ten goals and an assist for 21 points, while Ammann and Jack Mathis, who assisted on Ammann's goal Wednesday, have eight goals apiece. Nagel's ten goals are tied for third in the GLVC.
Wednesday's contest marked only the fourth time this season that the Panthers were held to fewer than two goals in a game, while the Miners have held 12 of their 17 opponents to date to less than two goals.
Goalkeeper Logan Ponche lowered his goals against average to 0.66 with Wednesday's shutout and has 36 saves and eight shutouts.
Drury is 14-3 overall and finished 12-3 in the GLVC, while the Miners are 8-7-2 overall and went 7-6-2 in GLVC play. Missouri S&T is making its eighth appearance in the GLVC Tournament, while the Panthers are in the tournament for the seventh time. This will be the first meeting between the two teams in the league's men's soccer tournament.
The other first round contests Sunday in the GLVC Tournament will pit top seed Quincy against eighth-seeded Bellarmine, No. 4 seed Lewis against fifth-seeded Rockhurst and No. 3 seed Missouri-St. Louis against sixth-seeded Indianapolis. The winner of Sunday's S&T-Drury game will face the winner of the UMSL-Indianapolis contest Nov. 7 at the site of the highest remaining seed.
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