COLUMBIA, S.C. \u2013 The 13th ranked South Carolina men\u2019s soccer team takes on its third straight top-25 opponent Monday (Sept. 7), when the Gamecocks host No. 14 High Point at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
This is the fourth time in program history where Carolina and its opponent are ranked sequentially in the coaches poll. Most recently, the Gamecocks were No. 18 and Michigan was 19th in the first round of the 2010 NCAA Tournament (L, 3-1). The No. 15 Gamecocks took on No. 14 UConn in 2007 (L, 3-0) and in 2001 No. 17 South Carolina faced No. 16 Furman (W, 3-2, 2OT).<\/p>\n
#13 South Carolina Gamecocks 4-0, 0-0 Sun Belt
Coach: Tony Annan | 6th Season \u2013 37-40-13
Goals Leader: 3 | Three players tied
Assists Leader: 4 | Mika Habel
Points Leader: 8 | Alejandro Velazquez-Lopez and Angel Lopez
Shots Leader: 9 | Lo\u00efc Sany Kong and Alejandro Velazquez-Lopez
Saves Leader: 10 | Noah Scheidweiler<\/p>\n
#14 High Point Panthers 2-1-1, 0-0 Big South
Coach: Zach Haines | 8th Season
Series History: South Carolina leads 3-0
Trend: South Carolina won 3
Last Meeting: South Carolina 3, High Point 1 | Sept. 28, 2016 | Columbia
Carolina Win Streak: 3, 2011-present
High Point\u00a0 Win Streak: None<\/p>\n
TAKING THE PITCH<\/p>\n
This will be the 4th meeting all-time between the Gamecocks and Panthers.
\nThis is the first meeting between to the programs since 2016.
\nAll three previous matches were played in Columbia.
\nThe Gamecocks earned a 2-1 win in their first meeting on Sept. 18, 2011.
\nThe highest scoring match of the series came in 2013, where Carolina won 5-2.
\nAll-time, the Gamecocks have out-scored the Panthers 10-4.<\/p>\n
QUICK NOTES<\/p>\n
This is the 49th season of South Carolina men\u2019s soccer.
\nCarolina\u2019s home opener saw 5,489 fans pack Stone Stadium, the 10th largest crowd in program history.
\nThe Gamecocks topped that with the largest attended match in program history August 28 against Clemson, 7,671, smashing the previous mark of 6,892.
\nSouth Carolina enters the week No. 13 in the United Soccer Coaches poll, No. 5 by Top Drawer Soccer, and No. 20 by College Soccer News.
\nIt\u2019s the first time the Gamecocks are ranked in the coaches poll since Oct. 25, 2016, when they were No. 25.
\nThe No. 13 coaches poll ranking is their highest since finishing the 2010 season at No. 10.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s their highest in-season coaches poll ranking since being No. 11 on Oct. 10, 2006.<\/p>\n
Yvan Malarte scored 1:05 into the match Thursday, the fastest Carolina goal since at least 2005.
\nThe Gamecocks are 4-0 for the first time since 2004 with the win at #25 Charlotte.<\/p>\n
Carolina began the 2003 season 7-0.<\/p>\n
The back-to-back victories over ranked opponents is the first for Carolina since defeating No. 13 Old Dominion and No. 11 Coastal Carolina in 2015.
\nThe Gamecocks improved to 3-0 on the season with the win over #16 Clemson, marking their first 3-0 start since 2014.<\/p>\n
It was their first win over the Tigers also since 2014.<\/p>\n
Through four matches, the Gamecocks rank 10th in the nation in goal differential (9).<\/p>\n
As a team, they also rank sixth in total assists and assists per game, eighth in total points and points per game, and 13th in scoring offense and total goals.
\nMika Habel ranks fourth in total assists (4) and assists per game.
\nAngel Lopez and Alejandro Velazquez-Lopez are tied for 22nd in total points (8).
\nAlejandro Velazquez-Lopez is tied for third in game-winning goals (2).<\/p>\n
Lo\u00efc Sany Kong was named the Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Week for his performance in the win over North Florida.
\nCarolina was picked to finish sixth in the conference by the coaches.
\nSouth Carolina is in its fifth season in the Sun Belt Conference.
\nCarolina led the nation in attendance in 2025 for the fourth straight season (3,792).
\nThey are the first program to lead the NCAA in attendance four straight seasons since UC Santa Barbara led nine straight years (2007-2015).
\nThe Gamecocks have an all-time record of 546-301-89.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLUMBIA, S.C. \u2013 The 13th ranked South Carolina men\u2019s soccer team takes on its third straight top-25 opponent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,6392,8748,17685,17683,6393,17684,43482,561,517,5923,82,6405],"class_list":["post-885732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-carolina","tag-columbia","tag-featured-articles-home-page","tag-fighting-gamecocks","tag-gamecocks","tag-headlines-home-page","tag-men-s-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-south-carolina","tag-south-carolina-gamecocks","tag-sports","tag-usc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}