UTICA, NY – The Utica College men's soccer team continues its three game road trip this weekend as the Pioneers open up Empire 8 Conference play on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Ithaca College. Saturday's game is a rematch of last year's Empire 8 Conference tournament semifinals and the Pioneers will look to avenge two very close 1-0 losses at the hands of the Bombers last season.
UC SO FAR: Utica has now won three of its last four games and improved to 3-4 overall following Wednesday's road win over Cazenovia.
CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT IMPLICATIONS: Recent history tells us that this early season conference contest has the potential to hold playoff implications … The Pioneers and the Bombers have met in the semifinals of the last two conference tournaments … The last time UC beat Ithaca was in the semifinals of the 2013 E8 tournament when the Pioneers topped the visiting Bombers 2-0 … Utica is looking to make its third consecutive conference tournament appearance for the first time in the program-history … UC has made the conference tournament five times since 2007, but they have only advanced past the semifinals once, back in 2013.
ALL-TIME LEADER: Senior forward
Shane Ruffing (Rochester, NY/Westborough) netted one goal on Wednesday night and has now tied Evan DuFault '07 and
Kevin McAllister '13 for the school-record with 26 career goals … Ruffing currently ranks second on the team with eight points this season … Ruffing now has 59 career points (26 goals, seven assists) and needs four more points to move into sole possession of third place on the College's all-time list … The school-record for career points is currently held by Evan Dufault, who registered 74 points in three seasons with the Pioneers.
WEDNESDAY RECAP: Six different Pioneers scored as UC rolled to its most convincing victory of the season, 6-0, on Wednesday night at Cazenovia.
WELCOME TO THE CLUB: Freshman classmates
Nicolas Diaz (Commack, NY/Commack) and
Peyton LaReaux (Utica, NY/T.R. Proctor) each added their first career goals in the blue and orange on Wednesday as the Pioneers cruised past Cazenovia … Four different players have scored their first collegiate goal for the Pioneers this season … UC backup goalie
Matthew Milograno (Marcy, NY/Whitesboro) earned his first career shutout victory in net as he made six saves in 90 minutes of work against Cazenovia on Wednesday.
CLAFFEY MOVING FORWARD: Junior
Patrick Claffey (Burlington, CT/Lewis Mills) was named the Empire 8 Conference Defensive Player of the Week on Monday … He continued his strong play on Wednesday when he netted his second goal of the season, assisted by
Joseph Hunter (Plymouth Meeting, PA/Plymouth-Whitemarsh).
ON A ROLL: Sophomore
Bita Gazashvili (Tiblisi, Georgia) leads the team with nine points on three goals and three assists this season … He has netted all three of his goals in his last two appearances … His average of 1.29 points per game ranks eighth in the conference.
MEET THE BOMBERS: Ithaca is currently 0-3-1 overall headed into Saturday's Empire 8 opener … Ithaca lost its first three contests of the season to Medaille, Oneonta and Cortland, before tying Marywood at home last Saturday … Brandon Thompson leads the team with five points this season (two goals, one assist) while Jose Contreras has one goal and one assist for the Bombers … Zach Jacobsen has started all four games for Ithaca and he has a 2.37 goals against average to go along with 21 total saves.
