Men's Soccer Releases 2011 Schedule
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Belmont men's soccer team schedule for the 2011 season is now officially complete, as the final match times have recently been added to the slate. The Bruins will take on three NCAA Tournament teams from 2010 in hopes of preparing to make it back to the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament for the first time since 2008.
Belmont will open the season with the first of three Missouri Valley Conference opponents, traveling to Missouri State on August 27. The Bruins then return home to host Memphis on September 1, before heading back on the road to take on UCF on September 4. The Knights made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, where they fell at Michigan by a score of 2-1.
BU will then return home to Nashville for a pair of tournaments on back-to-back weekends. The first of which will be the Belmont Invitational at the brand new E.S. Rose Park. Lipscomb, Georgia Southern, and VMI will be in town for the games on September 9 and 11. On September 16 and 18 the Bruins will travel across town to take on Xavier and IPFW in the Lipscomb Invitational. Xavier is the second NCAA Tournament foe of the season, as the Musketeers won the Atlantic 10 Tournament before falling to West Virginia in the first round of the NCAAs.
A couple of MVC opponents are on the schedule before the Bruins' A-Sun schedule begins. 2010 MVC Runner-up SIU Edwardsville will host BU on September 22, while Evansville will come to Nashville on September 25 for a 1:00 p.m. tilt.
Defending A-Sun Champion and NCAA Tournament participant ETSU is the first conference foe for Belmont in 2011. The Bucs, who lost to College of Charleston by a score of 3-2 in the NCAA First Round, will come to Rose Park on September 29.
It is then a pair of road games against USC Upstate and Lipscomb on subsequent Sundays to open October. North Florida and Jacksonville will then come to town on October 14 and 16, before the Bruins head to Florida for road tilts at Stetson and FGCU October 21 and 23.
A home contest against Mercer on October 30 rounds out the A-Sun schedule, and then Belmont will host Eastern Illinois in the regular season finale on the first of November. This year's Atlantic Sun Championships are to be held on November 9, 11, and 13 at multiple sites across the league.
