SURPRISE, Ariz. – The OUAZ men's soccer team will get its first taste of postseason play on Tuesday when they begin poll play at the 2018 NCCAA Division I Men's Soccer National Championship. OUAZ is the tournament's No. 5 seed and they will face No. 8-seed Columbia International at 3 p.m. MST on Tuesday in Pool B.
The Spirit will close pool play in Wednesday when they face No. 2-seed Grace College at 3 p.m. MST. The winners of the three pools, and the second-place team that wins the tiebreaker formula will advance to semifinal games on Friday. The championship game is slated for Saturday at 5:30 p.m. MST.
All of the games of the NCCAA National Championship will be played at the Austin-Tindall Soccer Complex in Kissimmee, Fla. All 12 games will be broadcast live ($6.95) on the NCCAA Network and each will have live stats available. The NCCAA Network is available at the web address
thenccaa.org/network and on Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, and Roku devices by downloading the NCCAA app. Links to the video and stats are available at
OUAZSpirit.com/live.
OUAZ heads to Florida with an 11-5-1 overall record. They haven't played a game since October 27 and ended the season with a pair of home loses. The Spirit are 5-1-1 in games away from home this season. In Golden State Athletic Conference action, OUAZ finished with 10 points and 3-4-1 to place sixth in the nine-team conference.
Entering the National Championship, OUAZ ranks third in the NCCAA by scoring 3.35 goals per game and they scored at least three goals in a game 10 times this season. The team attempts 14.47 shots per game with 58.9 percent of those shots on goal.
Six Spirit players scored at least five goals this season.
Ricardo Navarro leads the team with eight goals and 18 points. Navarro had a pair of multi-goal games, including a hat trick against Saint Katherine on October 1.
Samuel George and
Carlos Lopez each finished the season with seven goals and two assists.
OUAZ ended the regular season having allowed 25 goals and holding a 1.44 goals-against-average.
Yuri Nascimento started 14 games and posted an 8-5-1 record with two shutouts. He holds a 1.55 GAA and .741 save percentage.
The Spirit will enter the National Championship having never faced any of the eight teams in the field.
