‘Jacket men’s soccer 2017 schedule released

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Evan O’Kelly Director of Communications O: (406) 657-2130 E: evan.okelly@msubillings.edu Friday, June 9, 2017 ‘Jacket men’s soccer 2017 schedule released

MSUB’s men’s soccer team is set to take on a 19-game schedule this fall as the 2017 slate of games is released on Friday.

BILLINGS, Mont. – With 19 matches on tap for the 2017 fall season, the Montana State University Billings men’s soccer team announced its slate of competition for the upcoming year on Friday.

The ‘Jackets will play six non-conference games early on in the year, followed by a 12-game Great Northwest Athletic Conference schedule and a final non-conference game to end the regular season.

“This upcoming season needs to be one of ambition for us,” commented fifth-year MSUB head coach Alex Balog. “We have worked long and hard to maneuver our program into a spot where we feel we have a chance to compete beyond conference play. In terms of its strength, with the combination of our non-conference and conference schedules, we will be up there with the perennial Division 2 men’s soccer powers.”

The ’Jackets are coming off their best season since 2012, going 9-6-3 overall and finishing in fourth place in the GNAC at 5-4-3 in league play in 2016.

MSUB’s 2017 campaign will begin with a trip to Salt Lake City, Utah, where the ‘Jackets will take on Westminster College and Dixie State University. The team will then return home to host the Fourth Annual Rimrock Classic, where MSUB will take on a pair of California Collegiate Athletic Association teams in Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State University San Bernardino. The tournament will run Sept. 8-10 and will be hosted jointly with the Yellowjackets’ women’s soccer team.

Two more road games Sept. 14-16 will mark the end of the nonconference season, as the Yellowjackets will head to Bismarck, N.D., to challenge the University of Mary and Upper Iowa University.

The 12-game conference schedule begins with a four-game home stand from Sept. 21-30 at Yellowjacket Field. The final game in the stretch, against Saint Martin’s University on Sept. 30, will be MSUB Kicks Cancer Day. The ‘Jackets then face their longest road stretch of the year, playing five straight conference games away from home through the Senior captain Rhys Lambert and the ‘Jackets are set for a majority of October. Among MSUB’s opponents during the stretch 19-game schedule in the fall. are consecutive matches against Simon Fraser University, Western Washington University, and Northwest Nazarene University, the teams that finished first-through-third in the conference table a season ago.

MSUB’s final two home games are scheduled for Oct. 26 and Oct. 28, against SFU and WWU, respectively. The latter will also be Senior Day at Yellowjacket Field.

After closing the conference schedule on the road on Nov. 2 at Saint Martin’s University, MSUB will end the regular season with a non-conference home match against South Dakota Mines on Nov. 4. “We will take it game-by-game as always, but this is a season we are collectively looking forward to tremendously,” Balog said.

The 2017 NCAA West Region Championships are scheduled for Nov. 9-11, with the top-six teams from the combination of the GNAC, CCAA, and PacWest Conference earning a spot in the tournament.

Ticket prices for all home games are $5 for the general public, $3 for seniors (age 65 and up), students in grades 7-12, and MSUB faculty and staff, and free admission for all MSUB students and children in grades six and lower.

All home games and select road games in 2017 will feature live video and live statistics, available online through MSUB’s Stretch Internet portal here.

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