ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's men's soccer team, in the midst of a five-team scramble at the top of the Great Lakes Valley Conference standings, faces a busy week in league play with three games on the docket – including a match with one of the top teams in the nation.
The Miners' week opens Wednesday with a matinee contest against Saint Joseph's at 2 p.m. at the S&T Soccer Field; the game was rescheduled after being postponed due to weather on the opening weekend of the conference season. S&T will then head to the road Friday for a 7:30 p.m. matchup at William Jewell, followed by its final regular season home match Sunday against Rockhurst at 2:30 p.m.
Rockhurst was the top-ranked team in NCAA Division II last week, but suffered its first loss of the season on Friday to McKendree and figures to fall out of the top spot when the new rankings come out later this week.
The Miners enter the week at 7-1-6 overall and 6-0-5 in the GLVC; they are currently in third place behind Rockhurst and Missouri-St. Louis in the league standings. Coupled with Southern Indiana and Drury, the top five teams in the GLVC are separated by two games with three – or in S&T's case, four – games left on the schedule.
S&T finished with a pair of 2-2 ties over the past weekend against Bellarmine and Southern Indiana. The Miners have the GLVC leader in goals in
Felipe Andrade (Belo Horizonte, Brazil), who had two goals against Bellarmine and has 10 on the year and
Unnar Ulfarsson (Gardabaer, Iceland/Fjolnir Reykjavik), who is second in the league in assists with six and scored his sixth goal of the season Sunday against USI.
Will McIntyre (Queenstown, New Zealand) also scored for the Miners Sunday and has three goals and four assists for the season.
Goalkeeper
Aaron Hohenstein (St. Louis, MO/Lutheran South) has a 0.75 goals against average in 1,326 minutes of play, which ranks third in the GLVC and has a league-high 75 saves.
Saint Joseph's, 1-12 overall and 1-10 in the conference, has struggled to find the net this season as the Pumas have scored just five times in their first 13 contests. The Pumas got one of five tallies Sunday when Connor Roden scored in the fourth minute against Missouri-St. Louis, but the Tritons pulled out a 2-1 win in two overtimes to send Saint Joseph's to its eighth straight loss.
Five different players have scored goals for the Pumas this season, with Julian Zylfiu leading in overall scoring with three points. Adam Whybrow has started 10 games in goal and owns a 2.27 goals against average.
William Jewell ended a nine-game losing streak Sunday when it played to a 1-1 tie against McKendree and comes into the week at 2-10-1 overall and 2-9-1 in the GLVC. The Cardinals are paced in scoring by Charlie Parrish with three goals and three assists, while Rolla native Aaron Froehlich has two goals and two assists.
Quinn Ruggeri has a 2.21 goals against average in 1,178 minutes of action with 63 saves, the third-most in the league.
Rockhurst bounced back from its 1-0 loss to McKendree by downing Illinois Springfield 3-1 Sunday behind goals from Gianluca Bottoni, Brian O'Neal and Kaleb Jackson, who leads the 12-1-1 Hawks (10-1-1 in the GLVC) in scoring with nine goals and three assists. Adam Michel has scored four times this season, while Bottoni and Mitch Moncada have three goals apiece as the Hawks have outscored their opponents 28-8.
Goalkeeper Logan Feldmann has the GLVC's best goals against average of 0.56 and has played every minute between the pipes with 36 saves on the year.
