UMass Faces No. 1 Seed Boston College In NCAA Tournament Second Round
• After a 2-1 win over Boston University to begin the NCAA Tournament, the UMass men's soccer team (14-7-1) will travel to No. 1 seed Boston College (15-4-1) on Wednesday night to play in the Second Round of the tournament. Game time is set for 7 p.m. at the Newton Campus Complex. The Minutemen earned their second berth in program history after winning the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament, while Boston College earned the tournament's top seed and a first-round bye after winning the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament. This is the first time since 1988 that the two Commonwealth rivals have faced each other on the pitch. All-time UMass is 14-5-2 against the Eagles.
• This will be UMass' second all-time appearance in the NCAA Second Round. In 2001, UMass also advanced after defeating Creighton 1-0 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament before losing to St. John's 1-0 in the second round.
• Both NCAA Tournament appearances have come under the guidance of head coach Sam Koch.
• Last Friday, UMass hosted its first ever NCAA Men's Soccer Tournament game at Rudd Field and survived a late Boston University rally to win 2-1. UMass led 2-0 for much of the match, but the Terriers scored in the 87th minute and had an open net shot deflect off the right post with 40 seconds remaining to give the final score.
• The winner of this game will face the winner of the Central Connecticut/Tulsa game in Oklahoma on either Friday or Saturday in the third round.
• After a slow 2-4 start to the season, the Minutemen have gone 12-3-1 with nine shutouts. Included in that run were wins at then-No. 12 Saint Louis, a 1-0 win over two-time defending A-10 Champion Rhode Island in the A-10 Tournament, and the win over Boston University in the NCAA Tournament.
• The Minutemen made their 10th trip to the A-10 Tournament since joining the league in 1987. All-time, the Minutemen are now 6-6-3 and have two conference titles (2001, 2007).
• Boston College is led by Sherron Manswell and Alejandro Bedoya who each have over 20 points on the season. Manswell leads the team in goals with 11 and Bedoya leads the team in assists with 10. Mike Konicoff, Paul Gerstenberger, and Reuben Ayarna each have 13 points. Defensively, Chris Brown has played nearly every minute in net and is allowing just 0.69 goals against with an .803 save percentage. For the season, he has allowed just 14 goals.
• Sophomores Bryan Hogan and Mark DeSantis lead UMass offensively with 12 points each. Hogan has five goals and two assists, while DeSantis has four goals and four assists. Hogan is the team¹s top scorer for the second year of his career. Along with DeSantis, Douglas Rappaport and Ben Arikian each have four assists as well to lead the team. Defense, however, is where the Minutemen excel pitching nine shutouts and allowing just 17 goals - the fewest since the 1979 squad allowed 13.
• Zack Simmons has been the keeper of record for the season playing every minute between the posts. He boasts a 0.75 goals-against-average and a .853 save percentage. In front of him is an experienced and veteran defensive row anchored by three-time All-Conference selection senior Kenny Cook. In the centerback positions, Cook and redshirt junior Chris Brown solidify the four-man unit with Rappaport and sophomore Dan Lepone manning the flanks.

Simmons Is UMass' All-Time Goalkeeper
• With nine shutouts this season, redshirt junior goalkeeper Zack Simmons has etched his name into the UMass record books becoming the program's all-time shutout leader with 23. He also holds the school record for single-season shutouts (10) set in 2006 and has a chance to tie that record today. With 11 saves against Rhode Island in the Atlantic 10 semifinals, Simmons took hold of the UMass career saves record. In just three seasons, he has stopped 283 shots. He is on pace to set the single-season goals against average record as well. Entering today's game, Simmons is allowing just 0.75 goals per game. The school record is 0.87 set by Mark Hodgdon in 1977.
• Simmons recorded his 17th career shutout on Sept. 22 in a 2-0 win at Hartford, which passed Bryan O'Quinn who had 16 shutouts from 1998-01. Along with his seven clean sheets this season, Simmons had 10 in 2006 and four in 2005. His 10 shutouts in 2006 set a new single-season mark for the program as well. His nine shutouts this year ranks second all-time for a single-season.
• The former walk-on needs two more wins for UMass all-time record in that category and is close to the career goals against average record of 0.96. In three years, Simmons has posted a 1.03 GAA. Since his first year with the team in 2005, he has cut his GAA nearly in half from 1.43 goals against.
• He currently ranks ninth in the NCAA in save percentage (.855) and 30th in goals against average (0.75).

Iron Men Of The Flat Back Four
• UMass defenders Chris Brown and Kenny Cook will start their 62nd consecutive games on Friday. The pair have played in every game dating back to the beginning of the 2005 season. Not only have they started every game, but the pair rarely leave the central backfield. In that streak, UMass has pitched 23 shutouts mainly due to Brown and Cook's consistency.

O' Brother Where Art Thou?
• Mike and Mark DeSantis don't have to ask that question that often as both are usually on the pitch at the same time. Mike, the older of the two by a year, is a solid midfielder who aides as much defensively as he does offensively. For his career, he has played in 61 games starting 57 matches. Mark has spent time in both the midfielder and at forward and has had a break out year offensively as the team's second leading scorer. Both were standouts at Stoneham High School just outside of Boston.

Rappaport A Scholar And An Athlete
• Douglas Rappaport earned ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Second-Team honors after his successful return to the men's soccer team. The two-time Atlantic 10 Academic All-Conference selection is a double-major in political science and pre-med. He missed the 2006 season after having off season surgery on his ankle and then moving back home to Arizona for rehab. While undergoing rehab, he also attended classes at the University of Arizona and then did a study abroad program in Florence, Italy before returning to Amherst. With the injury to incumbent left fullback Trevor Singer, Rappaport moved from his native midfield position back to defense where his presence has truly made a difference.

True Home Field Advantage
• Few home fields yield such a distinct advantage as Rudd Field. At home UMass is 35-16-5 since the facility opened in 2002. All told, UMass has pitched 20 shutouts at home and outscored opponents by a 106-70 margin. The Minutemen have scored four or more goals at home on 10 occassions, while allowing that total just once.
• This season, the Minutemen pitched four shutouts at Rudd, while allowing just six goals and posted a 7-1-0 record.
• Sophomore Bryan Hogan scored the 100th goal in Rudd Field history on Oct. 14 in a 2-1 win over A-10 rival Xavier.

Congrats On Win #175 At UMass
• Head coach Sam Koch is in his 17th season at UMass and is the winningest coach in the program's 75-year history. His career win total in Amherst stands at 184, while his overall coaching win total is 242 games. Koch notched his 175th career win at UMass on Oct. 6 at Hartford - a 1-0 victory. Among active NCAA coaches, Koch is tied with Sasho Cirovski of Maryland for 27th in career wins. He is also just ahead of Elmar Bolowich of North Carolina and Bobby Clark of Notre Dame.

Commonwealth Well Represented In NCAA Tournament
• The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was one of just four states to be represented by four-or-more schools in this season's NCAA Tournament. Massachusetts was represented by UMass, Boston College, Boston University and Harvard. Virginia and Illinois also had four teams, while California leads the nation with five schools.

UMass Becoming Quite The Dancer
• The men's soccer team is the third team this fall to qualify for an NCAA Tournament appearance joining the field hockey and football teams. Nationally, UMass is in elite company as it is one of just seven schools to have three teams qualify for three of the first four fall NCAA Tournaments: Boston University, Duke, James Madison, UMass, UConn, Virginia, Wake Forest.
• Over the last three seasons, UMass has sent six teams to NCAA Tournaments, men's soccer, field hockey, football, hockey, men's lacrosse, softball. In 2006, the men's lacrosse team and football team were both National Finalists.

Zack Simmons Named A-10 Men's Soccer Student-Athlete Of The Year
• UMass redshirt junior goalkeeper Zack Simmons (Durham, N.H.) was named the Atlantic 10 Men's Soccer Student-Athlete of the Year and seven different Minutemen earned all-conference accolades as announced by the league on Wednesday. Simmons was also named to the All-Conference First-Team and the Academic All-Conference Team. Junior midfielder Mike DeSantis (Stoneham, Mass.) and senior defender Kenny Cook (Fairport, N.Y.) were each named to the Second-Team, while sophomore forward Bryan Hogan (Lititz, Pa.) was named to the Honorable Mention team. Freshmen Stuart Amick (West Lafayette, Ind.) and Ben Arikian (West Islip, N.Y.) were each named to the All-Rookie Team. Simmons was joined by redshirt junior defender Doug Rappaport (Tucson, Ariz.) on the Academic All-Conference Team. Rappaport was also named an Second-Team Academic All-American and an Academic All-District First-Team member, while Simmons was named to the Academic All-District Second-Team.
• Simmons earns First-Team All-Conference honors for the first time in his career. Last season, he was named to the Honorable Mention Team. He is the all-time career shutouts leader at UMass (23) after posting nine this season. By being named the league's Student-Athlete of the Year, he becomes the first UMass men's soccer player to earn that honor.
• DeSantis earned his first nod to an A-10 all-conference team after leading the UMass midfield. He scored two goals on the season including the game-winner against Fordham and was an integral part in the Minutemen's defensive play.
• Cook earned the third all-conference selection of his career. He was named to the Second-Team as well in 2005 and to the First-Team in 2006. He has started 61 consecutive games on the defensive back row and helped the Minutemen pitch 23 shutouts in his career.
• Hogan led the Minutemen in scoring with five goals and two assists during the regular season to earn Honorable Mention honors. He had two game-winners on the year.
• Amick and Arikian both played integral roles in UMass' season as they started nearly every game. Amick had four goals and an assist from his midfield position including two game-winners. Arikian had two goals and a team-high four assists in his rookie campaign - including a four-point game (1g, 2a) at Saint Joseph's to put the Minutemen into the conference tournament.
• For Rappaport and Simmons, this was the second time in their careers that they earned Academic All-Conference honors. Rappaport was named to the team in 2005, while Simmons earned the honor in 2006.
• The Minutemen finished the regular season 11-7-0 overall and 6-3-0 in the Atlantic 10. UMass' 11 wins were the most since 2003 season and the 12th time in head coach Sam Koch's 17-year career that the team has posted 10-or-more wins in a season.