The University of Rochester men's soccer team will compete in the NCAA Division III Championships this weekend when they journey to Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio as part of a four-team regional.
 
Rochester will play Calvin College of Grand Rapids, Michigan at OWU. The host Battling Bishops will take on Knox College in the other game of the pod. Games will be played on Friday, November 12. Winners advance to Saturday's second round. Times are still to be announced.
 
Rochester and Calvin have played once in men's soccer. The Yellowjackets opened the 2011 season facing seventh-ranked Calvin in UR's Flower City Soccer Tournament. Rochester defeated the Knights, 3-1.
 
This is Rochester's 21^st appearance in the NCAA playoffs. UR made its first appearance in 1986. The Yellowjackets have now been selected for five consecutive tournaments (no tournament was held in 2020 due to the pandemic). It is UR's 13^th appearance in the last 16 years, dating back to 2005. Rochester reached the Final Four in 2018. The Yellowjackets won a home first-and-second round pod in 2018, defeating Mt. St. Mary College, 2-0, and then beating The College at Brockport, 2-0.
 
Those victories put UR into the regionals (a.k.a. Sweet 16) scheduled for Messiah Collee in Grantham, PA (scheduled against Eastern University of Pennsylvania). A midweek snowstorm did serious damage to Messiah's field and forced the NCAA t move the regional to the Brian Prince Athletic Complex on campus with games scheduled for Edwin Fauver Stadium.
 

UR took advantage of the home site, defeating Eastern, 1-0, on Saturday and defeating top-ranked (and defending national champion) Messiah in the Elite 8 game. UR lost to Tufts University in the Final Four in early December.
 
The Yellowjackets played at Kenyon College in Ohio last year. In the first round, Rochester defeated Hanover College, 1-0, in Gambier, OH. Host Kenyon scored on a penalty kick in overtime to defeat Rochester, 2-1, in the second round.

 

Rochester enters the NCAA playoffs with a record of 9-3-4. The Yellowjackets seized that ninth win on Saturday, defeating Emory University, 2-1, in double overtime. Both goals came from penalty kicks – one midway through the first half, another with just over two minutes left in the second OT. Andrew Moglianesi scored both goals.
 
UR was 3-3-1 in the UAA. The 64-team field for NCAAs includes five UAA schools (Washington-St. Louis, Chicago, Emory, NYU, and Rochester). Based on the way the bracket is designed, if Rochester survives its bracket, the Sweet 16 opponent for the regional round could be Chicago. The Maroons are in a site at Otterbein College.
 
Rochester has a 2-3-1 record against NCAA teams this season. The Yellowjackets defeated SUNY Cortland (seeded first in its own pod), 1-0, on September 1. Rochester also defeated Emory. The tie came at John Carroll University, 0-0, four days after the Cortland victory. UR lost, 2-0, to Washington-St. Louis on October 2 (at Fauver), 1-0 at Chicago on October 9, and 2-0, at NYU on October 29. The score was 1-0 until one second before the final whistle when NYU scored into an open net with Rochester pressed forward searching for an equalizer.
 
The Yellowjackets posted nine shutouts this year and held four other teams to one goal. Santino Lupica-Tondo started 14 games. He allowed 10 goals in 1,371:24 for a 0.66 GAA. He made 65 saves. Ryan Cacace made five saves in two shutout starts.
 
The offense is balanced with 11 players scoring one or more goals. Moglianesi is the goalscoring leader with five goals (three gamewinners) and 11 points. Santi Ponce Ocampo (four goals, three assists) tied him in points (11). Four other players have three goals (Colin Canning, Tony Hypsher, Charlie Shanks, Nick Swanger).
 
Chris Apple (Rochester '92) has a career record of 243-75-56 in 20 seasons as head coach of the Yellowjackets. He coached at North Carolina Wesleyan for two seasons (1994-95), then one season as interim head coach at the University of Notre Dame (2000). He came to Rochester as head coach in 2001. His overall coaching record is 262-103-59 through last Saturday's win over Emory.