This season, SMU Men’s Soccer enters the American Athletic Conference Tournament as the No. 3 seed and host the No. 6 seed UCF on Saturday.
SMU is 3-3-4 all-time against the UCF and the last two matches have ended in ties. In the series SMU is 2-1-2 matches on the Hilltop and saturday’s match will mark the second time these teams will face off this season.
The first match was as a 1-1 draw in Orlando on Oct. 4 and the last time the Mustangs beat UCF at home was Oct. 6, 2007 (3-1). UCF enters the tournament with a 2-9-6 overall record and a 1-3-4 in conference play.
Romario Williams leads the Knights with 17 points: seven goals and three assists. UCF keeper Zach Biggs has 36 saves in 10 matches and a 1.24 goals-against-average.
First-year Mustang Jared Rice is ranked 17th in the nation with seven assists, and 22nd in assists per game with 0.44. Junior Idrissa Camara has thee game-winning goals for SMU this season, which is good for 35th in the country.
SMU, as a team is 17th in goals with 31 and is 19th in scoring offense.
The Mustangs have had thirteen different players score at least one goal this season. Camara‘s seven leads the way, while redshirt senior Damian Rosales has four and junior John Lujano and sophomore Stanton Garcia have three.
SMU has played well at home this season and has and 8-1-1 record at Westcott, including a 3-0-1 mark in conference action.
In all its conference tournament games, the Mustangs are 13-7-6 all-time and are 7-6-2 in first round/quarterfinal match-ups.
However SMU and UCF have never played each other in conference tournament action, even though they were both in Conference USA and joined the AAC at the same time.
A Mustang win on Saturday would also mark the 150th win of head coach Tim McClements. Right now, he has a 149-145-26 career coaching record (67-45-16) with the Mustangs. McClements was named the Midwest Region Coach of the Year in 2010, and the Conference USA Coach of the year in 2010 and 2012.
Saturday’s match is slated for at 7 p.m. CT at Westcott Field. Live stats and scoring will be available at smumustangs.com
