ORLANDO – On the heels of its strongest triumph of the fall campaign, the UCF men’s soccer team looks to continue its momentum in its 2026 regular-season home finale Thursday evening against the visiting Georgia State Panthers.
UCF on Thursday will also don its brand-new ‘Fright Mode’ Halloween-inspired kits in honor of the program’s inaugural ‘Fright Knight,’ scheduled just two days before Halloween.
The Knights most recently clinched their first ranked win of the fall campaign, toppling the then-No. 18 South Carolina Gamecocks by a 3-2 final score Sunday evening, on the strength of redshirt junior forward Drew Hansen’s third multi-goal showing of the year and junior forward Izán Martínez’s first career goal.
UCF’s latest winning effort also represented the program’s best result of the year by opposing RPI, as the Gamecocks entered the evening as the No. 6 team in the nation in the NCAA’s official RPI rankings.
With their Sunday victory, the Knights improved to 7-4-3 overall and picked up three more points in the Sun Belt table to enter their next matchup in sixth place with a 3-3-1 mark and 10 points in conference play.
For his efforts, Hansen was tabbed the Sun Belt Conference’s week 10 Offensive Player of the Week, marking the second consecutive week the Cleveland, North Carolina, native brought home the honors. He became the first Knight in UCF’s Sun Belt era to win back-to-back conference weekly awards, and the first player overall to do so since Kentucky’s Ryan Jack was named the back-to-back Defensive Player of the Week in weeks six and seven in 2024.
In the winning effort, he netted his eighth and ninth goals of the season to extend his single-season career best, as well as his third game-winner of the fall, representing a new single-season career best, and his sixth career game-winner.
Hansen now enters UCF’s Thursday matchup leading the Sun Belt in total goals (9) and goals per game (0.64), and also ranks among conference leaders in game-winning goals (3, T-2nd), points per game (1.36, 2nd), and total points (19, T-2nd).
Junior goalkeeper Matisse Hébert once again played an instrumental role in his team’s successful result as well, making four key saves to record his second consecutive game with at least four denials.
The netminder now enters the Knights’ penultimate match of the regular season boasting a 1.07 goals-against average and a career-best .706 save percentage, and with two more saves will set a new single-season career high.
Hansen and Hébert will lead their squad into battle against a Panthers squad sitting at .500 overall through 16 matches this fall, at 7-7-2, including a 1-5-1 mark against Sun Belt Conference foes.
Though the squad owns just one conference win thus far, it was a significant one, as the Panthers downed the then-No. 6 South Carolina Gamecocks in Atlanta by a 2-1 final score Oct. 17.
Junior defender Joseph Ogwang gave Georgia State a one-goal lead late in the first half, and after the Gamecocks found an equalizer in the 61st minute, graduate student midfielder Virgil Dall’Agnol netted his second game-winning goal of the season in the 78th minute.
Dall’Agnol represents the Panthers’ offensive leader entering the Thursday matchup, having notched three goals and four assists for a team-best 10 points, and sophomore goalkeeper Jackson Burrell has handled the majority of the load between the goalposts, having recorded a 1.33 goals-against average and a .797 save percentage with three shutouts in his 12 appearances.
UCF overall will look to build upon an all-time 9-3-1 lead in matchups against Georgia State, and with the teams’ 1-1 draw in Atlanta in 2025, the Knights have gone unbeaten in each of their last five meetings with the Panthers since 2004 (4-0-1 in that span).
Opening kick is set for 7 p.m. from the UCF Soccer Complex and will be streamed live on ESPN+.
ABOUT UCF ATHLETICS
UCF is a proud member of the Big 12 Conference. Our mission is to positively transform the lives of our students academically, athletically, and personally through a nationally competitive intercollegiate athletics program that enhances the reputation and visibility of the University. We strive to be Florida's preeminent athletic program representing UCF and our community with distinction on the national stage as "Orlando's Hometown Team". To learn more about UCF and Athletics, please visit our website at www.ucf.edu and www.ucfknights.com.