UE men’s soccer road trip heads to Xavier

The Purple Aces fell behind early at No. 9 Western Michigan on Sunday afternoon and weren’t able to make up the distance over 90 minutes in the 2-1 loss. It was UE’s first loss to Western Michigan in the eight-game series dating back to 1979. Sunday’s match was Evansville’s first against its first ranked opponent of the season. Currently the Aces have one more ranked opponent on the schedule in the no. 23 Bowling Green Falcons at the end of October. In 2023 UE played three ranked teams and last beat a ranked team in 2018.

After a season off from playing the Musketeers, UE returns to play at Corcoran Field for the first time since 2016. Evansville will try for the team’s first win in Cincinnati in almost 25 years on Tuesday after the two teams did not play each other for two separate six-year stretches. The two teams last met during the 2022 season in Evansville where Xavier left the River City with a 3-1 victory.

The Musketeers come into Tuesday’s game with a 3-2-3 overall record and a 1-0-0 Big East conference record. Xavier began conference play over the weekend with a 1-0 win over St. Johns for their second straight shutout match. The Musketeers are led on offense by junior defender Matthew Senanou who has three goals on the season. Xavier has had eight different players score a goal through eight matches.

Two separate UE players scored their first goals of the season in the Aces last week of matches. Redshirt freshman Jacopo Fedrizzi (Giulia, Italy) first goal came against Indiana in the 73rd minute and was the match-tying goal. While freshman defender Martin Wurschmidt (Fram, Norway) scored his first career goal at Western Michigan in the 63rd minute of the match.

Sophomore midfielder Will Bencic will play in his hometown for the first time since joining the Aces in 2023. Bencic has started the past two games for UE on the road and played at Lakota East HS in Cincinnati for four years prior to moving to Evansville.