NASHVILLE – After receiving a bye as the No. 2 seed through the quarterfinal round, the FGCU men’s soccer team (6-6-5) kicks off its 2014 Atlantic Sun Conference Championship Friday at 5 p.m. Eastern (4 p.m. local) with a semifinal match against 6th-seeded Northern Kentucky University (6-9-4).

HOW THEY GOT HERE
FGCU earned the bye by virtue of clinching an unprecedented fifth-straight A-Sun regular-season championship with a 4-1-1 mark (13 points). The Eagles shared this year’s title with Lipscomb, which earned the hosting responsibilities for the tournament as virtue of a 2-1 head-to-head victory at home earlier in the season.

NKU, meanwhile, finished with a 1-4-1 A-Sun record (4 points) and earned the lowest seed before going on to upset 3rd-seeeded Stetson, 1-0, in the quarterfinals at Lipscomb on Wednesday. Ian O’Reilly scored the goal off a corner kick from Cian McDonald in the 77th minute.

HOW TO FOLLOW
The game will be video streamed free of charge on ASun.TV, and can be accessed as well by visiting the link at the top of this release. Live stats will also be available, in addition to updates throughout the contest on Twitter @FGCU_MSoccer.

FGCU IN THE A-SUN CHAMPIONSHIP
FGCU is 4-1 all-time in the A-Sun Championship, going 2-0 in 2011, 2-0 in 2012 and 0-1 in 2013. The Eagles won the league title in each of their first two seasons of Division-I postseason eligibility (2011 and 2012) before losing in the semifinals at home last year to the University of North Florida, 2-1. In 2011, FGCU defeated ETSU on its home pitch to win the championship, 1-0, and then triumphed over Mercer the following year in overtime, 1-0, at the FGCU Soccer Complex. This is the first time in program history that FGCU has not been the No. 1 seed for an A-Sun Championship. All-time in A-Sun Championship history, the No. 2 seed is 2-0-1 against the No. 6 seed.

NKU IN THE A-SUN CHAMPIONSHIP
The Norse win over Stetson marked not only the first A-Sun Championship win for NKU but also its first appearance. NKU joined the A-Sun prior to the 2012-13 season and is just more than halfway through an NCAA-mandated four-year D-I reclassification period which makes it ineligible for postseason play until the 2016-17 season. However, prior to the start of the school year, A-Sun officials announced that NKU would be able to compete in A-Sun championships, but not NCAA championships. If NKU were to win the A-Sun Men’s Soccer Championship, Lipscomb would receive the A-Sun’s NCAA Championship bid as a result of earning the league’s No. 1 seed.

A-SUN CHAMPIONSHIP RESET
In the second semifinal on Friday, Lipscomb will face 4th-seeded North Florida at 8 p.m. (7 p.m. local). The Ospreys, who lost in the tournament final to ETSU last year, 1-0, crushed 5th-seeded USC Upstate in the other quarterfinal Wednesday, 5-0. The championship final will be held on Sunday at 1 p.m. (12 local) and be broadcast on ESPN3.

Admission to the A-Sun Men’s Soccer Championship at the Lipscomb Soccer Complex is free for A-Sun students with school ID. Ticket prices for general admission are $10 for the semifinals for adults and $15 for the championship game. Kids 12 and under are $5 for the semifinals and final.

SERIES HISTORY
Friday’s match will be just the fourth between FGCU and NKU since the Norse joined the A-Sun in 2012. The two sides tied their inaugural meeting, 1-1, in 2012 before the Eagles defeated NKU last year, 1-0. Earlier this season, FGCU controlled the match throughout en route to a 3-1 victory in which the Norse tallied a late goal to break up Nathan Ingham’s (Keswick, Ontario/Keswick HS) shutout bid.

SCOUTING NKU
The aforementioned McDonald and O’Reilly were both named to the A-Sun All-Conference Second Team. O’Reilly anchors an NKU defense which has six shutouts on the season, while McDonald leads the team with five goals and four assists for 14 points – a total which ties him for seventh in the league. In net, Toby Frohlich has taken over for A.J. Fleak as the junior has started the last eight games after entering for Fleak after the A-Sun Preseason Goalkeeper of the Year allowed FGCU’s third goal in the 3-1 Eagles’ win at NKU on Oct. 11.

A-SUN HONORS
Led by a league-high four selections to the A-Sun All-Conference First Team, the FGCU men’s soccer team had eight players named to the A-Sun’s all-conference teams Tuesday, as voted on by the league’s seven head coaches.

Earning All-Conference First Team selections were juniors Ingham, Aaron Guillen (El Paso, Texas/Coronado HS), Rodrigo Saravia (Guatemala City, Guatemala/College Internacional Montessori) and Felipe DeSousa (Tampa, Fla./Wharton HS). Landing on the All-Conference Second Team was sophomore Isaiah Madrid (Albuquerque, N.M./Eldorado HS/Westminster) and senior Henry Penagos (Margate, Fla./American Heritage School of Boca/Delray). Rounding out the FGCU honorees were Miguel Jaime (Greenwood Village, Colo./Cherry Creek HS) and Albert Ruiz (Barcelona, Spain/UE Cornella/CE L’Hospitalet) who were both tabbed to the A-Sun All-Freshman Team.

The eight all-conference players are the most FGCU has ever had, dating back to the program’s start in 2007. Additionally, the four First Team selections are tied for the most in a single season (2010). Jaime and Ruiz continue an impressive run of talent head coach Bob Butehorn has recruited and developed as FGCU has now had at least two All-Freshman Team selections in each of the program’s eight years of existence.

DEFENSIVE-MINDED
Nationally, FGCU’s 0.77 goals against average ranks 24th. Individually, Ingham has seven shutouts to his name this year – two more than anyone else in the A-Sun. His .811 save percentage easily leads the conference (no one else is even at .750), and he is the only goalie with a goals against average below 1.0 (next closest is Frohlich’s 1.18 – a 0.41 difference).

FGCU is working on a near-record-setting defensive season. The Green and Blue has not allowed more than two goals in a game this season, and only one other time in the program’s history has that occurred (2010). That 2010 campaign concluded with a record 0.58 goals against average, a number FGCU could hit this season with a few more shutouts as its current 0.77 average is the second-best in program history.

Looking closer at Ingham, the redshirt junior is just two shutouts shy of tying his own program record for single-season clean sheets with nine, set during the 2011 season as a freshman – the same year he was named A-Sun Tournament MVP. His 0.77 goals against average is currently the fifth-best single season performance in A-Sun history, which for men’s soccer dates back to 1979. Ingham’s goals against average is 28th in the nation, his save percentage is 33rd and his 60 saves are the second-most in the A-Sun.

FIT TO BE TIED
FGCU’s five ties this season are already the most in program history, with the previous record being only three in 2012.

THE STREAK
FGCU owns the longest home regular-season conference unbeaten streak in the nation. FGCU has not lost a home regular-season A-Sun game since 2008, a stretch of 26 in a row in which the Eagles are unbeaten (23-0-3). Included in that run is a 19-game winning streak, which was snapped in the second-to-last match last year when the Green and Blue tied Mercer, 0-0. FGCU’s last home regular-season A-Sun loss came to Jacksonville, 2-0, on Oct. 19, 2008 – an incredible stretch of 2,215 days.

A-SUN DOMINANCE
FGCU has an incredible overall record of 32-4-3 in all A-Sun regular-season games since the start of the 2010 season. All four of those conference losses have come on the road, and out of a possible 117 points that could have been earned in that time, the Eagles have claimed an impressive 99 of them.

RECORD SUPPORT
The 579 fans at the regular-season finale last Saturday against USC Upstate pushed FGCU over the 7,000-spectator mark for the season for the first time in program history. In fact, the 7,251 fans this year was 2,296 more than any other year as the previous all-time single-season record was 4,955 in 2011.

CHALLENGING NON-CONFERENCE
Due in large part to that record support was a grueling non-conference schedule for FGCU which Butehorn has called the most difficult in program history. Despite a .500 record, FGCU has an RPI of 125 – the second-highest among all A-Sun teams (Lipscomb, 91) – as a result of the demanding non-league slate, which includes seven top-100 RPI programs, six top-65 and three top-30 RPI teams: No. 8 Washington, No. 22 Louisville, No. 27 Akron, No. 51 USF, No. 57 San Francisco, No. 62 Saint Mary’s and No. 77 Brown.

FGCU has always played a challenging non-conference schedule, and as it has shown the Eagles have used that to prepare for the league slate. Of the 11 non-conference opponents FGCU faced this year, five were either nationally ranked or receiving votes in the national poll, while four others had defeated nationally-ranked teams.

Below is FGCU’s record each season since 2010 before playing its first conference game and then its record for the remainder of the season following its first league contest:

2010: 4-2-2 > 10-1-1
2011: 3-2-2 > 9-4-0
2012: 3-4-1 > 8-2-1
2013: 2-5-1 > 6-2-1
2014: 1-4-3 > 5-2-2
Total: 13-17-9 > 38-11-5

Some of those opponents following FGCU’s first A-Sun match were not conference foes, but the Eagles have clearly used the non-league slate to help pave the way to their five consecutive A-Sun regular-season championships.

THEY’RE BACK
FGCU scored 27 goals last season, and all 27 were from players who returned this year. The 100-percent return rate is the best in the country, tied with SIU Edwardsville which only scored 14 goals in 2013.

Highest Pct. of Goals Returning

1.    FGCU – 100.0 (27/27)

       SIU Edwardsville – 100.0 (14/14)

3.    Evansville – 97.1 (33/34)

4.    Syracuse – 96.7 (29/30)

5.    North Carolina – 89.5 (17/19)

6.    Missouri State – 88.2 (15/17)

7.    Virginia – 86.6 (39/45)

       Buffalo – 86.6 (13/15)

9.    NJIT – 84.0 (21/25)

       Duke – 84.0 (21/25)

11.  FIU – 81.5 (22/27)

12.  UAB – 81.4 (35/43)

13.  Cincinnati – 81.3 (13/16)

14.  Connecticut – 80.6 (29/36)

15.  South Carolina – 80.0 (20/25)

FOLLOW ALONG
For up-to-the minute information and a behind-the-scenes look at the FGCU men’s soccer program, follow on Twitter @FGCU_MSoccer and Instagram @FGCU_MSoccer.

COACH BUTEHORN
FGCU is led by Bob Butehorn, who has coached 38 A-Sun All-Conference selections since FGCU started its program in 2007. In just three years of postseason eligibility, Butehorn has guided FGCU to the NCAA Tournament twice – in 2011 and 2012 – and has won an unprecedented four-straight A-Sun regular-season championships. His teams have been ranked nationally on several occasions by multiple media outlets, and in 2013 he won his 100th career game.

SUPPORT THE CAUSE
FGCU Athletics sponsors events throughout the year to benefit the FGCU Campus Food Pantry (www.fgcu.edu/foodpantry) and the Harry Chapin Food Bank (www.harrychapinfoodbank.org), FGCU Athletics’ charities of choice. For more information, including how to make a contribution, please visit www.fgcu.edu/foodpantry and utilize the hashtag #FeedFGCU to help raise awareness.