'Eaters Play First Road Test at Pacific

THIS WEEK IN ANTEATER SOCCER

UC Irvine Anteaters (1-0-1) at Pacific Tigers (1-1-1)
Knoles Field - Stockton, Calif.
Sunday - 7:00 PM | ESPN+ | Live Stats

Promotional Schedule

Storylines

+ The offense carried the day in the first week of play with three goals in each match. It's the first time scoring three goals in consecutive matches vs. Division I opponents since doing so vs. Utah Tech and San Diego in 2021

+ Aside from an own goal, the others came from Gage Lyons, with a goal in each match and one a game-winner, Hunny Yoo netting his first in Anteater Stadium, Isaac Powell with the game-tying goal vs. Oregon State, and Cristian Gallo with a spectacular diving header

+ Seven assists for UCI on the six goals led by Marcus Lee with one in each match, and single assists contributed by Zac Smuck, Brady Treinen, Shane Kaemerle, Gage Lyons, and the first assist and point of his Anteater career to Braden Ferreira

+ Joe O'Shaughnessy in net has been up to the task with a win and a draw. He's made nine saves with the team helping on a 10th

+ The first week was full of debuts with eight new Anteaters seeing the pitch. Royie Rahamim made an appearance in the opener making his Anteater debut. The other seven made collegiate debuts including fourth-year from Spain Mario Nordstrom whose made two starts, freshman Pierce Rizzo with one start under his belt, other freshmen off the bench in James Arteaga, Javier Bedolla Vera, Kenshi Pivernetz, Matthew Miranda, and in his third year of college soccer and second stint with UCI, Cade Williams got his first collegiate minutes Monday

Last Week

+ The season opener was electric with six goals, a red card, and a 3-3 draw with No. 19 Oregon State in Anteater Stadium. UCI took three separate leads with the Beavers equalizing each time including in the 47th and 77th minutes while down to 10 men

+ Monday night featured UCI's first win getting two first-half goals on LMU before the Lions got one back early in the second half. UCI used a VAR challenge to reverse a call and claim their third and game-sealing goal in the 68th minute.

+ UCI played an exhibition at UCLA on August 11 coming away with a 1-0 victory. Zac Smuck scored in the 64th minute to seal it. UCI used 23 players including 10 newcomers, were out-shot 9-7, but had four shots on target to UCLA's one.

Sunday at the Tigers

+ Pacific went 1-1 to begin 2026 in Utah falling at Big West foe Utah Valley, 2-1, before a three-goal second half comeback win at Utah Tech, 3-2. They had the script flipped Thursday failing to hold onto a 3-0 halftime lead finishing in a 3-3 draw with UCD

+ All-time the squads played once back in 1985 before the Tigers returned in 2014. UCI is 2-1 since their return including a loss in the only trip to Stockton, 4-2, back in 2018

+ The Tigers have given up twice as many shots (55-25) and shots on goal (24-12) with freshmen Fateh Singh and Josephat Yangyuoru leading the squad with two goals each and sophomore Joaquin d'Escoto playing every minute on the backline

Schedule