The UVA men’s soccer team faces Georgetown at 1 p.m. Saturday at Klöckner Stadium in the sides’ final preseason competition before the start of the regular season. The friendly matches up a pair of preseason top-10 teams: No. 3 Virginia and No. 9 Georgetown.
Admission is free for the Saturday contest.
Virginia has been picked to finish second in the Coastal Division in the preseason ACC coaches’ poll. With 62 points, UVa was selected second in the division behind reigning national champion Notre Dame, which totaled 64 points.
The Cavaliers went 13-6-5 and reached the NCAA College Cup semifinals last year. Virginia returns 18 letterwinners who combine for 363 career starts (fourth most in Division I). Nine of the returning letterwinners started at least 10 games apiece last season, while goalkeeper Calle Brown (R-Sr., Leesburg, Va.) also is back after starting the final eight matches of the 2013 campaign.
UVa returns 86.6 percent of its goal scoring from 2013 – sixth highest in the nation. Virginia’s leading scorer from 2013, All-American Eric Bird (Sr., Virginia Beach, Va.), anchors the Cavaliers in the midfield.
Coming off a NCAA Round of 16 appearance in 2013, Georgetown is the preseason favorite to win the Big East Conference. Senior Tomas Gomez was voted the league’s preseason Goalkeeper of the Year, while junior Brandon Allen was named the preseason Offensive Player of the Year.
UVa begins the 2014 regular season on Friday, Aug. 29 when it plays host to No. 25 Old Dominion in an 8 p.m. match as part of a doubleheader with the UVa women’s soccer team.
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Chris Graham
