UMSL Men's Soccer Ready for GLVC Tournament

Rivermen Finished Regular Season in Second Place

ST. LOUIS, MO – The UMSL men's soccer team finished the Great Lakes Valley Conference season last weekend, recording two wins to finish with a conference record of 7-2-1. That mark was good enough for a second-place finish in the GLVC standings, the highest finish for UMSL since joining the GLVC seven years ago.

The Rivermen have earned the right to host a first-round GLVC Tournament game with their second-place finish. UMSL will face Wisconsin-Parkside on Wednesday, November 6, at 11 am, at Soccer Park in Fenton, Mo. That game will be the first game of a GLVC Doubleheader that will see SIU Edwardsville face Bellarmine at 2 pm. In their earlier meeting this season, UMSL and Wisconsin-Parkside went to double overtime before UMSL won 1-0 on a late goal by David Walters (St. Louis, Mo./Ritenour).

Second year head coach Dan King has led the remarkable turn around for UMSL, who finished 10th in the 11-team league last year and vaulted eight spots to this year's second place finish. Included in this seven conference wins was a big 1-0 win over local rival SIU Edwardsville, which ultimately secured the second place finish in the conference. Lewis University placed first in the GLVC with a conference mark of 8-2-0, just a half game ahead of the Rivermen.

The second place finish for UMSL marks the highest ever finish for the Rivermen since joining the GLVC seven years ago. The previous best finish for UMSL was a third-place finish in the 1998 season. Two years ago UMSL was 11th with a 1-9-1 conference mark and last year, Coach King's first season, UMSL was 1-7-2 and finished 10th before UMSL jumped to second this year.

Leading the way for UMSL on the field this year is senior Jeff Stegman (St. Louis, Mo./Vianney), who has a team-best 10 goals on the year. He also has dished out four assists for 24 points. Three other Rivermen have four goals on the year, including freshman David Walters and Alen Jujic (St. Louis, Mo./Afton), and senior Jim Reiter (Troy, Mo./Troy Buchanan). Freshman goalkeeper Brad Bernsen (Florissant, Mo./McCluer North) has logged the most minutes between the pipes and has a goals against average of 1.67 while recording 51 saves and three shutouts this season.

 

Year	Overall	Conf.	Place
1996	12-7-2	6-3-1	4th
1997	8-10-1	4-6-1	7th
1998	11-6-3	8-2-1	3rd
1999	9-11-0	5-6-0	7th
2000	3-15-1	1-9-1	11th
2001	5-10-2	1-7-2	10th
2002 *	8-6-1	7-2-1	2nd

 

 

* - One regular season game remaining. Nov. 3 at Missouri Southern.