JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Atlantic Sun Conference play opens this weekend for the University of North Florida men’s soccer team, which will end an eight-day break when it hits the field on Friday for its first of two matches on the road this weekend.

Schedule

UNF (3-5-0, 0-0-0 A-Sun) starts the weekend in Johnson City, Tenn., with a 4 p.m. contest against East Tennessee State (4-3-0, 0-0-0) on Friday. In their inaugural season, the Bucs have posted a 1-1-0 record at home and had won two straight before dropping an 8-0 decision to No. 15 North Carolina.

The Ospreys’ first A-Sun weekend comes to a close on Sunday with a visit to USC Upstate (1-7-0, 0-0-0) at 2:30 p.m. The Spartans lone win came at home – where they have a 1-1-0 record – against Brewton-Parker in the season opener, and the team is on a seven-game skid since. Upstate has scored only five goals this season and has been shut out five times. The Spartans hold an 8-2-1 all-time series record over UNF, but the Ospreys won last year’s meeting at Hodges Stadium, 1-0, and Upstate has not defeated UNF since 2004. Upstate opens A-Sun play on Friday, hosting Jacksonville.

Live Stats

UNF at USC Upstate – Sunday, Oct. 5 – 2:30 p.m.

Week Recap

The Ospreys faced UCF in mid-week action last week before taking the weekend off to prepare for A-Sun action. Despite junior Matthew Hollyoak’s first career goal, the Knights rode past UNF, 3-1. Click here for the full story.

Before the loss, the Ospreys had put together their first winning streak of the season with one-goal decisions over Georgia Southern and Flagler. UNF knocked off GSU on its home field, 1-0, (click here for the full story) and defeated Flagler at Hodges Stadium in the Ospreys’ second home match of the season, 2-1, in overtime (click here for the full story).

Who’s Hot

Hollyoak leads the Osprey squad with 748 minutes played this season. On his ninth career shot at UNF, he netted his first goal in the match against UCF. Three of his five shots this season have been on goal for a shot on goal percentage of .600.

Record Watch

With two game-winning goals this season, O’Neill is on pace for five, which would top the UNF single-season list and also boost O’Neill to the top of the career list. He scored two game-winners last season and currently ranks fourth on the career game-winning goals list (tied with three others including DeFreitas).

DeFreitas netted four game-winning goals last season and needs just four more in his career to become UNF’s all-time leader in that category.  The same stat ranks him first for an individual season (tied with A.J. Romano).

Quotables

Head coach Ray Bunch on entering A-Sun play after an eight-day break: ““The break was good for us. We feel like we were able to catch up and get to where we want to be as a team. We implemented some new training techniques, and hope we are in our strongest form to start conference play.”

Bunch on making improvements for conference competition: “We must come out of the gates stronger and not put ourselves in a hole. We’ve played much better after halftime this season, but we need to start the game with that intensity as well.