DETROIT - The IUPUI men's soccer team will kickoff a stretch of three Horizon League games in a seven-day span on Saturday (Sept. 24) when the Jaguars trek north to face Detroit Mercy (1-3-2, 0-0-1 HL) at 7:00 p.m. on ESPN+. The Jags will then host Cleveland State on Wednesday (Sept. 28) before trekking to Milwaukee on Saturday (Oct. 1) next weekend. 

IUPUI (1-3-3, 0-0-1 HL) opened Horizon League play with a 2-2 draw at Wright State on Sept. 10 as the Jaguars built a 2-0 lead before conceding scores in the 58th and 70th minutes. Since then, the IUPUI offense has been slowed as the Jaguars dropped a 2-0 contest at Loyola-Chicago and a 2-1 home loss to Belmont earlier this week. 

Despite the recent slide, the IUPUI offense has continued to churn out goals with high frequency as the Jaguars are scoring two goals per game and ranks among the nation's elite in assists at 18. Redshirt freshman Josemir Gomez continues to be the team's top target with five goals and an assist and junior midfielder Lukas Hackaa has three goals and a team-high four assists. Junior midfielder Logan Finnegan has two goals and two assists and freshman back Edgar Correia has three assists, including having helped setup Gomez's most recent score against Belmont. Eleven different Jaguars have at least one assist this season. 

Correia has been indispensable this season, having played a team-high 560 minutes in the defensive third. Three of IUPUI's top field players in minutes played are freshmen as Correia, Dominic Breidenbach (537) and Kade Tepe (537) and along Finnegan (542) for the top four spots on the squad. In goal, Lucas Morefield has a 2.00 goals against average in his six starts with a .613 save percentage. 

QUOTABLE
"I feel good. It's encouraging (to see) the individual performances. At times in games we look dangerous and at times we look solid. It's just finding that consistency that we're lacking at the moment. As I've said before, we're making mistakes that we've made previously and we're not really avoiding mistakes that are avoidable, so we have a bit of an Achilles heel at the moment that we're struggling to avoid certain types of errors. If we can fix that, it's really encouraging. We need to start learning from games like today. If we can do that, I think the program and the team is going into a really positive direction going into conference play," assistant coach Lewis Dunne said following the Jaguars' 2-1 loss to Belmont on Sept. 20. 

SCOUTING DETROIT MERCY
Detroit Mercy is 1-3-2 overall and 0-0-1 in Horizon League play after opening the league schedule with a 1-1 draw against Cleveland State last Saturday (Sept. 17). The Titans' lone victory of the season was a 2-1 win over Chicago State back on Sept. 1. The Titans have been outscored 14-8 on the season and are being outshot by 13 shot attempts per contest. Samory Powder leads the UDM attack with two goals and an assist and Rocco Galati also has two scores. In goal, Jonathan Kliewer has started all six contests in goal with a 2.33 goals against average and .725 save percentage.  

SERIES HISTORY
IUPUI is just 3-9-3 all-time against Detroit Mercy and 0-4-2 in the six meetings in Detroit. The Titans have won the most recent three meetings and five of the last six contests between the two schools. The Jaguars' last win in the series was a 1-0 victory in September 2018 in Indy. The two teams have played overtime seven times in the 15 matchups in the series.  

UP NEXT
IUPUI will host Cleveland State on Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 7:00 p.m. at Michael A. Carroll Stadium on ESPN+.