ORLANDO – The No. 10 UCF men’s soccer team returned home from its first road trip of the regular season Sunday evening, playing to a 0-0 draw with the South Florida Bulls at the UCF Soccer Complex to conclude the Knights’ 2024 non-conference slate.
The strong defensive effort clinched the first clean sheet of the season for the Black and Gold (2-1-3), as well as for redshirt freshman goalkeeper Shane Wright, and represented the fifth match of the team’s first six that has seen UCF yield one or fewer goals thus far.
Wright, in helping clinch the first shutout of his collegiate career, made a pair of second-half saves to lower his personal goal-against average to 1.50 through four matches, and drop the Knights’ respective mark to 1.33 through their first six contests.
“This was the first game this season we didn’t concede a goal,” defender Anderson Rosa said. “We got our strong back line together to go without conceding. We just need to fix some things in the final third and get back to scoring goals on the other end.”
Offensively, the Knights notched 12 total shot attempts, matching the Bulls’ (2-1-4) 12, with three on goal throughout the contest, courtesy of Rosa, fifth year defender Alex Smith and sophomore Yanis Belatrache.
“Everybody knows that this is important to our fans and to our athletic department,” head coach Scott Calabrese said. “There’s a history, and when you have these games that have history between the two teams, everybody knows the intensity, physicality and competitiveness is going to be higher. This was what we expected today, it was a really hard-fought match.”
UCF wraps up its non-conference schedule with just one defeat in six contests, and will now look ahead to the commencement of Sun Belt Conference play with a road tilt against the James Madison Dukes Sept. 21. Kickoff for the match is slated for 7 p.m. from Sentara Park in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and will be streamed on ESPN+.
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