ORLANDO, Fla. – The UCF men's soccer team filled up the back of the net early and often in the opening match of its exhibition slate, topping Stetson 7-2 in 120 minutes of play on Saturday night.
"It was really good to see our players play in a match," said head coach Scott Calabrese. "It was important that we got the opportunity to see the entire squad have really encouraging performances. Overall, we felt like we did a lot of things well, but this is just the starting point of our season and now we're going to turn our attention to looking at the video and trying to understand how we can get better and that will help us as we move forward from game to game."
The action started early in the 13th minute as Gino Vivi did a quick give and go with the ball to Mauricio Villalobos Vega. Vivi worked his way to the front of the net where he made a move and buried the chance with the left foot.
Minutes later, Villalobos buried a chance of his own, working his way through a few defenders and finishing in the lower left-hand corner to give UCF a quick 2-0 lead.
SMU transfer Nick Taylor cashed in on a ball in front in the 25th minute that was initially knocked away by Stetson's keeper, but found the foot of Taylor who put it away with ease.
The Hatters answered in the 28th minute with a goal of their own, trimming the Knight lead to 3-1.
UCF earned the goal right back less than 10 minutes later as Vivi earned his second score of the evening from a sharp angle to increase the lead back to three.
Gianluca Arcangeli jumped onto the scoresheet in the 44th minute as he found a ball that had been batted around in front and rifled it home, giving the Knights a 5-1 lead heading into halftime. Arcangeli wasn't done scoring though as he opened the second stanza with a sliding goal off a beautiful feed from Asher J'n Pierre in the 66th minute.
The Black and Gold held a 6-1 lead at the 90-minute mark. Both teams had agreed to play an extra 30 minutes at the conclusion of regulation, so play continued.
Stetson was first to score in the overtime, netting one down and to the right in the 103rd minute, only to be answered by the Knights' Jonas Schmalbach in the 106th.
UP NEXT
UCF will wrap up their exhibition slate on Aug. 20 at FAU at 6 p.m. The two sides met in 2019 with the Knights prevailing 3-2 in overtime.
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