MISENHEIMER — Now seven contests into their schedules, the Pfeiffer Falcons men’s and women’s soccer teams have each entered USA South Athletic Conference play as the first month of their 2024 seasons wraps up.
The former is looking to achieve consecutive its second-consecutive winning season and the latter is hunting for its first winning season in four years.
Eighth-year coach Tony Faticoni and the Falcons men’s team are coming off a 7-6-3 (3-3-1 conf.) season and currently have a 2-3-2 record after starting USA South play with a 1-0 home loss to N.C. Wesleyan (3-2-4, 1-0 USA) last weekend.
Sophomore defender Alex Michael currently leads the Falcons with four goals, while freshman defender Alec Paraiso has played a team-high 496 minutes.
The Falcons opened the season with a home loss to Averett (3-3-3, 0-2 ODAC), followed by back-to-back road wins at Ferrum (4-5, 1-1 ODAC) and Johnson & Wales (4-2-2). From there, Pfeiffer had a pair of ties with Wooster (5-4-1) and Piedmont (5-3-2, 1-0 CCS), leading up to a 2-1 loss to Virginia State (1-4-1).
Pfeiffer hoped to get back in the win column with a home matchup versus Methodist (4-4-2, 1-0 USA) on Tuesday night. From there, the Falcons have five more conference matchups — with two non-conference games in between — before taking a shot at the USA South men’s tournament starting on Nov. 6.
For second-year coach Acasio Roche III and Pfeiffer’s women’s team, the Falcons (2-5, 0-1 USA) have already matched the amount of victories they had in all of last season’s 2-14-2 (0-8-1 conf.) campaign.
The team picked up two wins right from the jump in September, besting both Warren Wilson (0-6) and Regent (1-6) in road matchups.
From there, however, the Falcons have been the victim of five consecutive losses where they have only posted one combined goal. Guilford (5-2-1, 0-1 ODAC), Piedmont (3-2-3, 1-0 CCS), Johnson & Wales (4-2-2), Bob Jones (6-3), and Greensboro (4-7, 1-1 USA) have each gotten the better of Pfeiffer in this two-week stretch of games.
In the Falcons’ conference-opening game at Greensboro, they finally snapped a four-game scoreless skid but only posted a single goal in a 5-1 loss to the Pride.
Sophomore forward Khamani Spencer tops the Falcons with three goals and junior defender Jadelyn Taylor leads her team in minutes played (628).
Following a seven-day break from action, Pfeiffer is set to host N.C. Wesleyan (3-6-1, 1-0-1 USA) on Saturday before taking on seven other conference opponents; the USA South women’s tournament is scheduled to begin on Nov. 2.