ROCK HILL, SC—The men's soccer team returns to action Monday evening as it travels to Johnson City, TN for a 7 p.m. matchup with East Tennessee State after a seven-day break between games.
Winthrop is off to a 2-0 start for just the second time in the past seven seasons after 2-1 victories at Georgia Southern and over Wofford College last weekend. The Eagles had a rare seven-day break between games this early in the season as they will face an ETSU squad that is 1-1 on the year. ETSU opened the season with a 1-0 road loss at South Carolina before bouncing back to defeat Kentucky 1-0 in its home opener.
The Eagles have received back-to-back solid performances defensively to start off the season having come 27 seconds shy of recording a shutout in the opener and holding Wofford to a single goal after it opened the season with four against Gardner-Webb. It's the fewest amount of goals Winthrop has given up in its first two games to start a season since it allowed just one goal in each of its first two in 2008.
This will be just the third time these two teams have ever met as ETSU has a fairly new program that was started in 2006. The first ever meeting came in 2010 as the Eagles traveled up to Johnson City and suffered a 2-0 loss. Last season the two teams squared off in Rock Hill as the Eagles rallied for a 3-2 victory in overtime. It was a win that ended a three-game losing streak and started a three-game win streak.
Senior
Adriano Negri leads the team with two goals as he scored both in the second half of the victory over Georgia Southern and was named the College Sports Madness Big South Conference Player of the Week for his efforts. Freshmen
Max Hasenstab and
Jose Mencia have a goal each as Mencia scored in his first ever collegiate game. Senior
Adam Brundle has two assists in two games, which leads the team.
Junior
Guilherme Avelar has more than proven his ability after the first weekend of play as he made 11 saves in 26 shots faced and had a shutout spoiled with 27 seconds left in the win over Georgia Southern on a defensive letdown. Avelar was named the Big South Conference Defensive Player of the Week for his efforts in the opening weekend. He even had a hand in the game-winning goal against Wofford as his goal kick was flicked on twice by Winthrop players that ended up on the foot of Mencia as he buried the shot into the net.
The Buccaneers feature one of the nation's top forwards in David Geno, who is coming off a season in which he scored 11 goals and had eight assists and has been named to the preseason MAC Hermann Trophy Watch List as being named to the Soccer America Preseason All-America Team. He has missed the first two games, but could be available for Monday's game.
ETSU returned seven starters among a total of 16 returnees from a team that was 10-6-4 last season.
Freshman Thibault Civalier was the hero for ETSU in its home opening win over Kentucky as he put away a rebound in the 47
th minute for his first collegiate goal. Defensively ETSU held Kentucky to just five shots in the game and just two on goal.
Getting a result will be tough as the Buccaneers are 9-2-3 in their last 14 home matches with the only two losses coming to Mercer and Florida Gulf Coast. Since the start of 2011, ETSU is 12-3-4 at home and the last non-conference home loss came against Appalachian State in the regular season finale in 2011.
