Fresh off its eighth conference championship in school history, the Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ men\u2019s soccer team advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament after a 3-2 victory over Florida Atlantic at the Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ Soccer Complex on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n
Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ earned the automatic bid to the postseason Sunday after securing its first Sun Belt Tournament championship in program history with a 3-1 win at Marshall. While the majority of Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½\u2019s teams compete in the Big 12 Conference, the league does not sponsor men\u2019s soccer as an affiliated sport. The men\u2019s soccer team joined the Sun Belt in 2023.<\/p>\n
The Knights are the only program in the state of Florida and one of 15 in the country to see both their men\u2019s and women\u2019s soccer programs advance to the 2025 NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
After a first-round win over Georgia Southern, the Knights toppled two nationally ranked opponents in their run to the top of the Sun Belt, besting No. 19 Kentucky and No. 12 Marshall for their second and third ranked wins of the season. This year marks the team\u2019s first season in history with at least three top-25 ranked victories.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow incredible this group of young men is \u2014 I could not be prouder. This group was 2-5-1 to start the season, and to end the season as Sun Belt Champions and win on the road and go through the teams we went through and then win at Marshall, what character this group has displayed,\u201d head coach Scott Calabrese says. \u201cIt\u2019s an incredible achievement, and we\u2019ve put in a lot of work. The response from the team, the level went up from our players. They are determined to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heading into Sunday\u2019s championship match at Marshall, the Thunder Herd had been defeated just twice all season, and not on their home turf since Nov. 26, 2023, a span of 721 days.<\/p>\n
Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½\u2019s win marked the fifth conference tournament title in program history, as well as the Knights\u2019 eighth overall conference championship, and their first since 2020-21.<\/p>\n
The Knights headed to the 2025 NCAA Tournament as one of the hottest teams in the nation, boasting an 8-1-2 record in its last 11 matches ahead of the premier postseason tournament.<\/p>\n
Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ is in the middle of its 10th appearance in the NCAA Tournament in school history.<\/p>\n
With their first-round win over FAU, the Knights remain unbeaten against in-state opponents this season, improving to 2-0-1 in matches against the Owls, then-No. 22 South Florida and Jacksonville.\u00a0 The win also marked the team’s first victory in the NCAA Tournament since the program toppled then-No. 17 James Madison, 2-1, in the round of 32 of the 2020 tournament (pushed to the spring of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic).<\/span><\/p>\n The Knights will now face No. 15 Georgetown Sunday evening. Kickoff is set for 5 p.m. in Washington, D.C. and will be streamed live on ESPN+.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After winning their eighth conference championship in school history, the Knights have advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":149955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[3346,54857,4857],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-149954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-ncaa","tag-scott-calabrese","tag-ucf-athletics"],"yoast_head":"\n