Men's Soccer Hosts SMU Saturday Evening

Saturday, October 15

Memphis, Tenn.

7:00 PM

University of Memphis

SMU

Photo by: Joe Murphy

Oct 14, 2016 | Men's Soccer

Tigers look to win back-to-back conference matches for first time since 2014

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – The University of Memphis men's soccer team looks to continue its solid play at home with a 7 p.m. Saturday night contest against SMU at Mike Rose Soccer Complex. The Tigers are 7-4-1 overall this season and 5-1-0 on their home turf.

Memphis is coming off of a 3-2 victory against American Athletic Conference foe UCF last weekend. The Tigers took an early 2-0 lead before the Knights battled back to tie it at 2-2 before intermission. A goal by Jordan Klipsch in the 64^th minute proved to be what it would take to grant the Tigers their first conference victory of the season.

"I was very pleased with how we started the game, we were on top of it," said head coach Richard Mulrooney. "We lost our way the last 10 minutes of the first half. Our message at half time was that we were still tied 2-2, not down 2-0 like last year, and we were playing a good brand of soccer. If we go out and play like that in the final 45 minutes, we'll get rewarded. Thankfully we did with Jordan getting one in during the second half."

GAME 13 INFORMATION:
Saturday, October 15 | 7 p.m. CT
SMU at Memphis
Location: Memphis, Tenn.
Venue: Mike Rose Soccer Complex
Twitter Updates: @MemphisMSoccer
Watch | Live Stats

With a goal and an assist last week, freshman forward Burke Fahling earned his second Rookie of the Week honors while senior defender Kenneth Kauker was coined to the conference's weekly honor roll for his goal and assist against UCF.

This was the first time in his career where Kauker had been recognized by the conference for his weekly accomplishments. It was his first goal of the season and the third score of his career. Kauker was also credited with the assist on Klipsch's game-winner against the Knights.

Jackson Morse leads the Tigers with four goals scored this season. Twelve separate players have scored this season for Memphis, which ranks among the nation leaders for goal distribution. The Tigers are ahead of every other team in the conference with USF and UConn coming in at 10 scorers each.

SMU enters into the weekend match with a 4-8-0 overall record and 0-3-0 mark in American Athletic Conference play. The Mustangs have yet to win a match on the road this season.

The last two matches for the Mustangs have been AAC contests. The UCF Knights defeated SMU on Oct. 1 while Temple handed a loss to the Mustangs on Oct. 8. Both of those losses were 1-0 shutouts.

Mauro Cichero and Brenden Lee lead the team with three goals each. Cichero has fired a team-high 32 shots this year. In goal, Michael Nelson has seen the majority of the time for SMU. He owns a 1.46 goals against average with 41 saves and a .732 save percentage.

As a team, the Mustangs have tallied a total of 14 goals while conceded 19. SMU is averaging just over 1.1 goals per match and 53 of its 139 total shots are on goal.

Kick-off against the Mustangs is slated for 7 p.m. at the Mike Rose Soccer Complex. The first 100 fans will receive a complimentary custom Memphis soccer scarf. The game will be broadcasted on the Memphis Tiger Network and in game updates can be found on Twitter at @MemphisMSoccer.