Bears Travel To Furman For Regular Season Finale On Saturday

Saturday, November 2

Greenville, S.C.

7 p.m.

Mercer University

Furman

Bears Travel To Furman For Regular Season Finale On Saturday

11/1/2024 9:56:00 AM | Men's Soccer

By: Donovan Schultz, Donovan.schultz@live.mercer.edu

MACON - The Mercer men's soccer team wraps up the regular season on Saturday, traveling to Greenville, S.C. to take on the Furman Paladins. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.

MATCH INFO
Date | Time: Saturday, November 2 | 7 p.m.
Teams: Mercer (6-4-6 overall, 1-2-1 SoCon) vs Furman (7-3-3 overall, 2-1-1 SoCon)
Location: Greenville, S.C. | Stone Stadium
Watch: ESPN+
Live Stats: Stats
Twitter Updates: @Mercer_MSoccer

SERIES HISTORY
Saturday's match is the 20^th meeting between the Bears and Paladins. The two teams last met in the SoCon Tournament final a year ago, with Mercer taking a 2-0 win to secure an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Bears scored twice in the first five and a half minutes of the match, with Carlos Santamaria and Nick Wanzer doing the scoring. Mercer is unbeaten in their last five meetings with Furman.

LAST TIME OUT
Mercer had their highest scoring output of the season on Tuesday, scoring four times in a shutout win over Winthrop.

The Bears jumped on the Eagles early, scoring twice in the first 17 minutes. The first goal came on a penalty kick after a shot by Carlos Santamaria found the hand of a Winthrop defender. Santamaria took the penalty and calmly slotted a shot into the bottom left corner to give the Bears an early lead.

Just a few minutes later, the Bears struck again. Carlos Santamaria received a pass from Tommy Redd and sent a ball down towards the top of the box for Barzee Blama. The Winthrop keeper made an aggressive play to meet Blama at the top of the box, but Blama was able to collect the pass, turn, and bury a shot into the back of the net for his team-leading fifth goal of the season.

After going into halftime with a 2-0 lead, Mercer came out of the break in attack mode. In the 55^th minute, Segun Afolabi played a ball to Tomas Morales in front of the goal, who passed it back to Afolabi for a left-footed laser that found the back of the net to make the score 3-0.

The Bears delivered the dagger in the 63^rd minute when Tomas Morales received a pass from Fernando Arteaga and slotted home his first career goal, pushing the lead to four.

Goalkeeper Stephen O'Hearn made his first career start and recorded a clean sheet, making one save. For the match, Mercer held a 18-4 edge in shots and a 4-1 advantage in shots on goal.

SCOUTING FURMAN
Furman enters Saturday's match with a 7-3-3 record overall and a 2-1-1 record in SoCon play. They are tied for second in the SoCon standings with seven points. The Paladins most recent outing came last Saturday, a 1-1 draw against league-leading ETSU.

Christian Kraus, a SoCon all-conference selection a year ago, leads the Paladins with 13 points. He has scored five goals and added three assists. Aaron Salinas has started all 13 games in goal for Furman, posting a 1.09 goals against average and a .696 save percentage.