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ORLANDO, Fla. - The University of Cincinnati men's soccer team was defeated by the UCF Knights, 1-0, on Saturday afternoon at the UCF Soccer and Track Complex in Orlando, Florida in both teams' final regular season match.
With the loss, UC falls to 9-7-1 on the season and 3-4-0 in American Athletic Conference play. Meanwhile, UCF improves to 5-10-0 overall and 3-4-0 in league play. A win would've locked up a berth in The American Championship for the Bearcats but they now must await the outcomes of tonight's SMU - UConn and Temple - USF matchups. The top four teams in the conference standings advance to the league championship which will be held Nov. 11 & 13 in Tampa, Florida. USF and Tulsa have already clinched the one and two seeds, respectively.
The Bearcats got behind early when UCF's Matias Pyysalo dribbled the ball just inside the box on the far side and pushed it past redshirt junior goalkeeper Pedro Diaz (Mason, Ohio/Mason) to the near side of the net for the first and only score of the match in the eighth minute. UC registered one shot in the first half - by senior Jonny Williams (Loveland, Ohio/Loveland/IUPUI) - and had a pair of corner kicks.
After a back and forth opening 20 minutes of the second half, the Bearcats thought they had scored the equalizer in the 65th minute but freshman Elliott Williams' (London, England) header was nullified as UC was called offside. Searching for the match-tying goal, the Bearcats had a Elliott Williams header attempt saved in the 80th minute off of a sophomore Adam Wilson (Auchterarder, Scotland/Dollar Academy) corner kick. The Knights then possessed the ball for much of the final 10 minutes of the match as they edged the Bearcats, 1-0.
// GOAL SCORING SUMMARY
8' - UCF Matias Pyysalo (Cal Jennings)
Off of a pass from Jennings, Pyysalo takes the ball just inside the box and slides it past Diaz for the match's lone goal.