Men's Soccer | 10/28/2016 12:52:00 PM

Montclair, NJ – For the Montclair State women's soccer team, it's a date against its local rival. For the men's team, it's just about the same. That's what both will be facing when each team hits the pitch for the first round of the New Jersey Athletic Conference Soccer Tournament on Saturday.

The Red Hawk women (14-3-1), seeded third, will host No. 6 seed William Paterson (13-4-1) at MSU Soccer Park at 1:00 pm while the fifth-seeded MSU men's squad (13-5-1) heads to Camden to face No. 4 seed Rutgers-Camden (8-6-4) at the same time. Tickets for the contest are $5 and $2 and you can follow both games with live video and live stats on montclairathletics.com.

The winner of the MSU-WPU contest advances to Wednesday's semifinal at No. 2 seed Rowan with the victor in the men's contest traveling to No. 1 seeded Rutgers-Newark on Tuesday, November 1.

For the MSU women, it will be a rematch of its October 12 contest at MSU Soccer Park won by Montclair State, 3-1. All of the scoring in the contest came in the first half. RYELLE SANSONE gave Montclair a 1-0 lead nine minutes in however Tori Woetzel scored off a corner kick 37 seconds later to tie the match. EMILY BEENDERS put Montclair in front in the 19^th minute and CHRISTINE MAYORGA scored 10 minutes after that for the 3-1 lead.

Each team comes into the match on winning streaks. The Pioneers have won all four matches since the loss to the Red Hawks. On the flip side, Montclair State has won its last three, and four of its last five with the lone loss coming against No. 1 seed The College of New Jersey.

Beenders leads three MSU players with double-digit goals. The freshman has 12 on the year along with eight assists while Mayorga and senior JENNIE HORNSTRA have found the back of the net 10 times each. William Paterson freshman Marissa Adelman leads all players with 18 points while Kristen Bowe and Carla LaRocca have contributed seven and five goals, respectively.  In goal, MOLLY BARROW and ALYSON BURNS have combined on 11 shutouts in MSU's 18 contest this season while sophomore Angela Sandelli has made 60 saves in 16 starts.

MSU and WPU will meet for the 29^th time overall and fifth time in the NJAC Tournament with the Pioneers holding a 2-1-1 edge. The last meeting came in 2011, two days after the surprising snowstorm that forced the postponement for two days. The teams battled to a scoreless draw with MSU advancing on penalty kicks, 3-1.

Penalty kicks is where the Montclair State and Rutgers-Camden men's team went last season when the two faced off in the NJAC title game for the fourth time. The Scarlet Raptors prevailed in the shootout to capture the league crown. This year's matchup won't be for the championship. Instead the two schools, who have won nine of the last NJAC titles, will be looking to advance to the next round.

The Red Hawks and Raptors earned their spots in the tournament on Wednesday in different fashion. Montclair State won its game with New Jersey City while the Raptors fell at Stockton. Together they fell into a four-way tie for the final three playoff spots along with TCNJ and Kean University.

Rutgers-Camden won the tiebreaker to claim the No. 4 seed while MSU became the fifth-seed setting up the matchup.

Senior LUCAS TERCI leads the MSU offense which is averaging over three goals per game. Terci, Montclair's all-time leader for goals, assists and points, is one of the top players in the nation scoring 24 goals and recording 52 points. He has three hat tricks on the year. Senior MIKE OLLA and sophomore RAFAEL TERCI have eight and six goals, respectively. Sophomore MIKE SAALFRANK had 58 saves and 11 victories.  Aaron Muse and Brad Maine have scored five goals each for the Raptors while James Brett has six shutout and a 0.97 goals against average along with 111 saves.

Montclair won the regular-season match between the teams at MSU Soccer Park on September 24, 3-1. AARON ROSE had a goal in that game with Montclair getting an insurance goal in the 64^th minute on an own goal as a Raptor defender inadvertently knocked the ball into the net while trying to clear out an attempt.