ORLANDO – For the first time in UCF athletics history, the Knights are No. 1.
Riding a five-match win streak, the UCF men’s soccer team has claimed the first No. 1 national ranking in a regular-season poll by a team in school history in the United Soccer Coaches’ week nine rankings released Tuesday afternoon, garnering seven of eight first-place votes.
The latest ranking comes on the heels of three consecutive weeks with the No. 2 spot, and represents the seventh straight week with a top five national ranking, as well as the ninth consecutive week with a top 15 spot in the organization’s poll. The Knights (9-1-2, 5-1-1 SBC) also overtook first place in the Sun Belt table with their latest win over the South Carolina Gamecocks Sunday, vaulting past Marshall and the West Virginia Mountaineers with a conference-best 16 points and two matches remaining in the regular season.
While UCF went 2-0 with wins over South Carolina and the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers over the past week, the previously top-ranked Marshall Thundering Herd suffered back-to-back losses to then-No. 5 West Virginia and the Kentucky Wildcats. Marshall fell to No. 6 in the United Soccer Coaches’ latest release and the Mountaineers jumped to No. 2.
Rounding out the Knights’ 2023 opponents to be represented in the latest poll, the Clemson Tigers earned a share of No. 10 with North Carolina, and Florida International slotted in at No. 24.
COMPLETE UNITED SOCCER COACHES WEEK 9 POLL
| RANK | SCHOOL | PREVIOUS | FIRST-PLACE VOTES | TOTAL POINTS | W-L-T |
| 1 | UCF | 2 | 7 | 199 | 9-1-2 |
| 2 | West Virginia * | 5 | 1 | 193 | 11-0-4 |
| 3 | Wake Forest | 3 | 0 | 184 | 11-1-4 |
| 4 | SMU | 4 | 0 | 172 | 10-1-2 |
| 5 | Notre Dame | 6 | 0 | 168 | 10-1-4 |
| 6 | Marshall * | 1 | 0 | 162 | 12-2-0 |
| 7 | Georgetown | 8 | 0 | 153 | 9-2-2 |
| 8 | Duke | 9 | 0 | 138 | 8-3-2 |
| 9 | Portland | 12 | 0 | 132 | 9-3-0 |
| T-10 | North Carolina | 11 | 0 | 125 | 7-2-5 |
| T-10 | Clemson * | 15 | 0 | 125 | 9-3-2 |
| 12 | Seattle U | 13 | 0 | 113 | 10-2-3 |
| 13 | Akron | 7 | 0 | 95 | 9-1-6 |
| 14 | Virginia | 18 | 0 | 94 | 8-3-3 |
| 15 | Stanford | 17 | 0 | 93 | 7-2-4 |
| 16 | Michigan State | 20 | 0 | 77 | 7-0-6 |
| 17 | New Hampshire | 19 | 0 | 70 | 9-1-4 |
| 18 | Missouri State | 10 | 0 | 68 | 8-2-3 |
| 19 | Syracuse | 22 | 0 | 56 | 7-3-5 |
| 20 | Pittsburgh | 23 | 0 | 42 | 6-4-4 |
| 21 | Vermont | 16 | 0 | 36 | 10-3-2 |
| 22 | Hofstra | RV | 0 | 21 | 10-3-4 |
| 23 | Western Michigan | NR | 0 | 19 | 11-1-3 |
| 24 | Florida International * | 14 | 0 | 18 | 8-3-3 |
| 25 | Bryant | 24 | 0 | 14 | 12-1-2 |
RECEIVING VOTES: Denver (10), Northwestern (7), UCLA (7), Oral Roberts (3), St. John's (2), Charlotte (2), Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville (1), Loyola Marymount (1).
* Denotes 2023 UCF opponent
The top-ranked UCF Knights will look ahead to their penultimate match of the regular season, a road contest at the Georgia State Panthers Friday evening, before returning home for their regular-season finale against James Madison Oct. 31.
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