ROCK HILL, SC—Coming off its first loss of the season, the Winthrop men's soccer team looks to begin a new unbeaten streak when it hosts Campbell Tuesday evening at 7 p.m.
Winthrop (7-1-1, 1-0-0 Big South) concluded its non-conference slate with the loss at home to the College of Charleston on Oct. 1 as it looks to improve in conference play. The Eagles opened up league play with a 5-1 road win at the Virginia Military Institute and look to start Big South action 2-0 for the first time since 2008. It will be a tough task as the Eagles have not had much success against the Camels over the years. Campbell leads the all-time series 16-2 and the only two Winthrop wins came in 1987.
Despite just one goal last week in the loss to the Cougars, Winthrop is sporting the nation's third best offense at 2.67 points per game and leads the Big South in goals against average at 0.87.
There have been 12 different goal scorers for the Eagles this season as freshman
Max Hasenstab leads the team with seven and senior
Achille Obougou has four. Hasenstab is ranked fourth in the country in points per game at 2.11. He's 12
th nationally in total goals (7) and 15
th in total assists (5). Senior
Adriano Negri (3) and freshman Jose' Mencia (2) are the only other players with more than one goal. Senior
Adam Brundle is tied with Hasenstab for the team lead in assists with five.
Junior
Guilherme Avelar continues to perform well between the posts as he's holding a 0.92 goals against average and a .818 save percentage as he's started all nine games.
Campbell enters the game with just one win on the year at 1-6-2 with the lone victory coming at home on Sept. 3 in the team's conference opener against VMI, 3-2. However, the Camels have been competitive against a strong schedule having faced North Carolina State, Davidson, Loyola (Md.), #1 North Carolina, #28 Charlotte, UNC Wilmington, UNC Greensboro and #20 Elon.
Through nine games, Campbell has eight goals led by junior Ricki Gaez and senior Justin Franz. Senior Ethan Hall has been in goal every game and nearly every minute of the season as he's sporting a 1.79 goals against average.
Last season the Eagles suffered a 5-2 defeat at Campbell after falling behind 5-0, but that seemed to be the game that woke the Eagles up as they lost just two more games en route to the NCAA College Cup. Winthrop had two goals in the final 10 minutes by
Mason Lavallet and
Alex Isern.
Following Tuesday's game the Eagles will hit the road again where they have yet to lose as they will head to Lynchburg, VA for a 2 p.m. matchup with Liberty.
