By: John Kean, Athletic Communications Director
ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's men's soccer team heads on the road this weekend for the final time in the 2023 regular season for a pair of contests, including its first this season against a nationally-ranked team.
The Miners will square off against eighth-ranked Indianapolis Friday night at 7:30 p.m. (Eastern time), before heading northwest to play their final road game of the conference season Sunday in a 2:30 p.m. matchup against Lewis in Romeoville, Ill. S&T's two weekend opponents are currently among the top four in the Great Lakes Valley Conference standings.
Missouri S&T, who currently sits in a tie for ninth place and one point in back of eighth place Rockhurst, picked up a win over Missouri-St. Louis last weekend before falling Sunday to McKendree, putting S&T at 3-7-2 overall and 2-5-1 in the GLVC heading into Friday's match.
The Miners got the win over UMSL thanks to a pair of second half goals by
Mike Banasik (Loekkegade, Denmark/Hjoering Gymnasium), who scored twice in a span of just over two minutes as S&T overcame a one-goal deficit to win 2-1. The two goals gave Banasik five for the season, which leads the team and has him tied with four others atop the GLVC in that category.
Santiago Cervantes (Collierville, TN/Collierville) has four points on two goals this season, while
Sigurd Semlitsch (Oslo, Norway/Stabekk Videregaaende Skole) – who had the assist on the game-winning tally – has a team-leading four assists that also has him ranked among the conference leaders.
Goalkeeper
Davis Joseph (Andover, KS/Andover Central) comes into the weekend with a 1.87 goals against average and has made 35 saves in 961 minutes of playing time.
ABOUT UINDY: The Greyhounds – coached by former S&T head coach Gabe Hall – are undefeated on the season at 8-0-2 and are 6-0-1 in the GLVC, which has them second in the GLVC standings with 19 points behind Illinois Springfield's 21. UIndy had its five-game winning streak snapped with a 1-1 tied at McKendree on Oct. 1, but rebounded with a 2-0 win over Lewis on Sunday.
Michael Tselios leads the Greyhounds with 11 points on three goals and five assists, while Kabiru Gafar and Owen Atkinson also have three goals for a team that has seven players who have scored multiple times this season. Meanwhile, UIndy has allowed only five goals on the year, as goalkeeper Kieran Brown has a 0.50 goals against average and has made 24 saves in 892 minutes. Brown has had a hand in all five shutouts recorded by UIndy this year.
ABOUT LEWIS: The Flyers had a five-game winning streak snapped in a 2-0 loss to UIndy on Sunday, which also halted a seven-game shutout streak they possessed heading into that game. Lewis, 5-2-3 and 5-1-1 in the GLVC, has allowed goals in only two games this season – both losses – with goalkeeper Sebastian Doppelhofer holding the league's second-lowest goals against average of 0.42. Offensively, the Flyers are led by Godwin Asore with eight points on two goals and four assists and Joram Bogers, who leads the team with three goals.