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ROCK HILL, SC—The men's soccer team will look for its third straight win Saturday afternoon as it welcomes 13^th ranked Coastal Carolina for a 2 p.m. Big South Conference matchup.
The Eagles are coming off two straight wins which has improved their overall record to 6-9 and evened their conference record to 3-3. Winthrop is tied for fourth in the conference standings with Radford and Presbyterian College. The Eagles defeated Presbyterian College 2-1 on Wednesday and will finish off the regular season on Nov. 5 at home against Radford.
Coastal Carolina enters the game ranked in the Top 20 of all four polls, posting a 13-2 overall record and a perfect slate of 6-0 in the Big South. The Chanticleers have won nine straight games and four of their last five games by two or more goals.
Winthrop got back on track with a road win at Liberty last Saturday and followed that up with a 2-1 victory over Presbyterian College. Winthrop had several extremely good chances for goals it couldn't capitalize on, but the Eagles managed enough goals to hang on for the win. Junior Marc Segarra had a team-high six shots with a one-on-one and a sitter from, but was unable to find the back of the net. Instead it was Tomas Brennan scoring the first goal of the game and his first of the season. Andres Pullin also scored his first goal of the season, which proved to be the game-winner.
The Eagles should get their leading scorer back for Saturday's game as junior Alex Mantchev has missed the last two games. He leads the team with four goals.
This will be the first time since the 2002 season that Coastal Carolina came to Rock Hill, SC ranked among the Top 25. That year Coastal Carolina was ranked 10^th nationally and fell 2-1 in double-overtime as Dee Vydra netted the game-winner. Winthrop and Coastal Carolina ended up tying for first place in the conference that season. Winthrop went on to capture the conference tournament that year and Coastal Carolina received an at-large bid to the NCAA College Cup.
This matchup has been a rivalry for the past decade and the two teams have combined for nine of the last 10 Big South titles. Coastal Carolina having won five while Winthrop captured four and Liberty won in 2007.
Junior Ashton Bennett is the leading scorer in the league and second in the nation as he's led a Coastal Carolina offense that's scoring 2.47 goals per game (ranked 2^nd nationally). He is tied nationally for the most goals with 16. Sophomore TeeJay East has six goals and one assists while freshman Ricky Garbanzo and sophomore Pedro Ribeiro each have four goals.
Senior Scott Angevine has anchored a defense ranked 35^th in goals against average at 0.86. Angevine has played all but 34 minutes and 26 seconds this season and has earned four shutouts.
Coastal Carolina leads the all-time series 22-17-2 and has won the last two regular season meetings.