ROCHESTER, Mich. - The IUPUI men's soccer team will take its modest two-game winning streak on the road on Saturday (Oct. 22) when the Jaguars take on Oakland University (3-8-3, 3-1-2 HL) at 1:00 p.m. on ESPN+. The game will play a pivotal role in the league standings as Oakland enters the weekend in fourth-place and the Jaguars are currently in fifth.
IUPUI (3-5-5, 2-1-3 HL) swept a key two-game homestand last week with a 2-1 win over Northern Kentucky, followed by a 1-0 win over Green Bay. Against NKU, redshirt freshman
Josemir Gomez registered his team-high seventh goal in the 28th minute and
Lukas Hackaa tallied the game-winner on a penalty kick in the 83rd minute. Freshman back
Dominic Breidenbach drew the foul to earn the PK opportunity and Hackaa converted his fourth score of the year and second game-winner.
Against Green Bay, Breidenbach and Gomez setup the first career goal from freshman
Spencer Holland in the 66th minute for the game's only offense. Redshirt junior
Lucas Morefield dialed up his fifth career shutout, stopping five shots in the win. He and a rapidly improving IUPUI back line have cleaned things up in league play, having yielded just seven goals in six league games. Freshman
Edgar Correia leads the team in minutes played, having played 1,052 minutes and has been on the field 90 percent of the time this season. Correia's contributions are chronicled here in
The Portuguese Connection.
Offensively, Gomez has been a one-man wrecking crew with seven goals and three assists and Hackaa has four scores and four assists.
Logan Finnegan has three goals and three assists and freshman
Ethan Vermillion has two goals. Eight different IUPUI players have at least one goal and 12 different players have an assist.
HORIZON LEAGUE STANDINGS
QUOTABLE
"Wins always feel good. I'm extremely pleased. It's a clean sheet, a goal from (Holland), a freshman who started off the year not playing much - for him to get a goal was great to see. (I'm) not too thrilled with the performance, but at the same time, if we can win the ugly ones, I think it's another massive step for us as a program in terms of going the right direction," head coach
Sid van Druenen said following his team's 1-0 win over Green Bay.
SCOUTING OAKLAND
Oakland is 3-8-3 overall and 3-1-2 in Horizon League play, sitting fourth in the league standings. Overall, Oakland has been outscored 26-8 on the year, but has outscored foes by a 5-3 margin in league games. Dawsun Schrum leads Oakland with seven points (two goals and three assists) and Ville Ahola has two goals. In goal, Michael Sly Jr. has a 1.46 goals against average and .814 save percentage, having started 11 of the team's 14 contests with four shutouts. Finn Jurak started three contests and has a 3.53 GAA and .600 save percentage.
SERIES HISTORY
IUPUI is 6-18-1 all-time against Oakland and 1-11 in 12 meetings on the road. Oakland has won seven of the past eight meetings between the two schools, blanking the Jags in seven of those contests. IUPUI's lone win during that span was a 1-0 home double overtime win on Sept. 29, 2018 on a
Fernando Borges goal. IUPUI's lone win at Oakland came back on Oct. 30, 1999, as OU has since won 11 straight against the Jaguars in Rochester.
UP NEXT
IUPUI will step outside league play to face Bellarmine on Tuesday, Oct. 25 at 7:00 p.m. on ESPN+.
