CONWAY, Ark. – Back on the road for another ASUN match, the Central Arkansas men's soccer team heads to the Sunshine State to take on Florida Gulf Coast in a conference match on Saturday. Kicking off at 6 p.m. CT, the Bears enter the weekend with a chance to clinch a berth in the ASUN Championship.
 
Central Arkansas (2-7-3, 1-2-2 ASUN) picked up another point in the table last week, tying Stetson 1-1 last Saturday. The physical match saw Pietro Fontana log his tenth goal of the season in the first half, becoming the first Bear to score ten times in a season since 2019. He currently ranks tenth in all of Division I in total goals this season, and is ninth in the nation in putting his shots on target, with 61.3 percent of his 31 shots posing a scoring threat.
 
Fontana's offensive outpouring has kept the Bears in the hunt for a postseason berth, currently in sixth place in the ASUN. After Liberty and Jacksonville State's departures from the conference, there are just eight men's soccer teams remaining in the Atlantic Sun, with six making postseason. As it stands, a win on Saturday, combined with other results around the league, would lock a spot up for the Bears. Central Arkansas has had the second-best offense in league games this season, scoring 13 times in five matches. Where the team has struggled is on the defensive side, allowing 13 goals as well.
 
Florida Gulf Coast is one of the teams occupying a higher seed than the Bears with just a few games left on the schedule, owning a 3-5-4 overall record with a 2-1-2 record in conference. The difference being, where the Bears have been fine offensively and in a bind defensively, the Eagles are the opposite, having not scored in three-straight matches, but have only allowed one conference opponent to score even twice.
 
Two of the last three games for FGCU have come against nationally ranked opponents out of conference, in No. 13 North Carolina and No. 23 FIU. Though the Eagles failed to score against the juggernauts, FIU was held to just a single goal. The one conference match came against the defending champion Lipscomb, also a 1-0 loss for the Eagles. FGCU was stunned by an 88^th minute goal from the Bisons in a match that seemed destined for a draw, Florida Gulf Coast outshot the Bisons 16-11, with a 6-2 advantage in shots on goal.
 
The leading scorer for FGCU this season is Luis Lugo, who has three goals to his name. Eight other Eagles have scored goals for a team that has 13 scores in 12 matches. But the Eagles have been the stingiest team in the ASUN since the start of league games, allowing the fewest goals in conference matches. The FGCU keepers, Daniel Copeland and Wyatt Kisner, have split time between the posts, but have faced fewer shots than their opponents, needing to make just ten saves in conference games.
 
Kickoff against the Eagles is set for 6 p.m. CT in Fort Myers, Fla. The match will be streamed on ESPN+, with live stats available online.