Saturday, September 17
Memphis 1, SMU 0 – Box Score
Charlotte 3, UAB 0 – Box Score
UCF 4, Temple 0 – Box Score
Memphis 1, SMU 0 – Box Score
MEMPHIS, Tenn. – The Memphis Tiger men's soccer team picked up their third consecutive win over SMU tonight when they took the 1-0 win over the Mustangs.
After today's game, Memphis moves to 3-1-1 for the season and 1-0 in conference play.
Colin Welsh made three saves in the opening half to keep the Mustangs off the board. In the 64', Lineker Rodrigues dos Santos would find the feet of Alberto Cruz deep in the box on a breakaway to connect for a Tiger goal and give Memphis the 1-0 lead.
Welsh would record one more save late in the match while the Memphis defense held SMU to just two shots on-goal in the final 45 minutes of play.
Charlotte 3, UAB 0 – Box Score
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – A punishing first half performance and a fifth consecutive clean sheet propelled the No. 11 Charlotte men's soccer team past UAB, 3-0, to open American Athletic Conference play on Saturday night at Transamerica Field.
The result pushed Charlotte (6-0-0) to its sixth consecutive victory to open the season, marking the 49ers best start to a season since starting 6-0-0 back in 1996, while the Blazers (2-4-0) were sent home with their fourth consecutive loss.
The Niners trio of goals came from senior Alex Willis, sophomore Lasse Laursen and sophomore transfer, Filip Jauk. CLT also saw a pair of assists from freshman stud Brad Dildy and junior Jonathan Nyandjo.
Willis' goal marked his team-leading fifth of the season, upping his season point total to a team-leading 12 through six matches.
The opening 20 minutes of the night were rather cagey, with much of the contest getting clogged in the midfield. The teams in the opening half of the first half combined for just four total shots and only one on goal.
Eventually the Niners found more of the possession in the final third and found the back of the net for the opener off the head of Willis.
Nyandjo broke down a pair of defenders on the far side of the 18, before playing a near-perfect cross across the face of goal that found the forehead of Willis who gave CLT the first half lead.
Less than 10 minutes later, Laursen cleaned up a scrum inside the 18 to score his second goal of the season to double the Niners advantage with less than 10 to play in the opening half.
Just before the stroke of halftime, Jauk and Dildy combined with one another on a counter attack into the Blazers final third that saw Jauk smash home the 49ers third into the far post.
Out of the break and for the majority of the second half, the Green & White largely controlled the run of play, but failed to find the back of the net in the final 45 minutes.
The programs combined for seven yellow cards in the second half as much of the final 20 minutes was a rather physical affair between the programs.
UCF 4, Temple 0 – Box Score
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – The UCF men's soccer team won its American Athletic Conference opener in dominating fashion, defeating Temple by a score of 4-0 on the road to improve to 4-1 on the season with four straight victories.
Just after the clock hit the 12-minute mark, Robbie Soronellas found some magic in his right foot. Gino Vivi was able to strip a defender and get a pass off to Soronellas, who wound up and fired a knuckler from long range and tucked the ball just inside the post. It was a magnificent goal from way out and represented Soronellas' first goal as a Knight in his second season after transferring in from North Florida.
The 27th minute saw UCF double its lead, as a quick outlet pass from Maël Haise found the foot of Vivi up ahead, who drove into the box and fed a ball across to a charging Lucca Dourado, who made one touch and buried the opportunity. It was the second assist of the contest for Vivi, marking the fourth time of his career he has done so. The last time he picked up a pair of assists was also against Temple back on Sep. 24 of last season.
Mauro wasn't done though, as UCF's next trip down the pitch resulted in a remarkable strike from the Brazilian who banked one off the bar and down into the net from far out at the 83-minute mark.
The Knights scored again a minute and 27 seconds later to set a new season high with four goals. Dourado earned his second brace of the season thanks to a couple of magnificent passes. Kevin Andrews passed the ball off to Mauricio Villalobos Vega who flicked it on immediately to Dourado who was able to convert on the first-time chance.
Dourado's second score of the contest brought him to 23 career goals, putting him in a tie of 10th place on UCF's career goals list. Dourado has scored two goals in two straight contests, netting a pair of first half goals at UC Irvine and scoring one in each half in the Knights' conference opener. It is the fifth two-goal game of Dourado's career.
Villalobos extended his point streak to four straight matches, tallying another assist on a Dourado goal, the third such occurrence this season. Villalobos tallied a goal in the team's first win of the season, a 2-1 victory over North Florida before earning two assists against UC Riverside and one at UC Irvine. Vivi has also been on the scoresheet in four consecutive matches, tallying assists against North Florida and UC Irvine and a goal against UC Riverside.