THE SCHEDULE: San José State remains at home this week to round out the first half of the season, hosting Kansas City on Friday afternoon before closing its three-match homestand against Houston Baptist on Sunday. Friday's match will kickoff at 12:00 p.m. with Sunday's set for a 1:30 p.m. start.
FOLLOW ALONG: Both matches will be streamed on the WAC Digital Network with Greg Mroz on the call. Live stats will be available for both matches and you can follow every San José State men's soccer game live on Twitter, @SanJoseStateMS.
TICKETS: Individual game tickets to regular season matches are on sale now via Ticketmaster charge-by-phone at (800) 745-3000 or online at Ticketmaster.com. Youth tickets are available for $5, with adult tickets on sale for $8. Those wearing a Bay Area sports jersey will be eligible for discounted admission to Friday's match, while fans wearing pink for Sunday's Breast Cancer Awareness contest will also receive a discount. Group ticket inquiries should be made to (408) 924-SJTX (7589).
SIMON SAYS:
- "I have always placed an importance on winning your home games in conference play," says head coach Simon Tobin. "We start with three of those this year and got underway with a win last week. We've got a tough trip coming up so it's important to get points while we can and that continues this weekend."
- "It's always a bit of a change when you're playing in the afternoon," Tobin says. "Playing on a Friday at 12:00 p.m. should provide an interesting atmosphere. It will be important to generate our own intensity and be ready from the start."
FIRST TOUCHES:
- Five different players (Nicolas Brenes, Eduardo Buenfil, Suliman Khorami, Danny Sanchez, Rodolfo Castro)have scored at least one goal this season.
- Khorami, Brenes and Sanchez each top the team with four points a piece. Brenes' brace against CSU Bakersfield led his club to its first victory of the season and marked the program's first multi-goal performance by a player since Sept. 10, 2018 (Willy Miranda vs. San Francisco).
- San José State ranks first in the WAC and No. 2 nationally in shot accuracy (0.552), only trailing Western Michigan (0.592).
- Midfielder Max Allen leads the club with 17 shots through eight matches. Allen was named to the All-WAC Preseason Team last month.
- Midfielder Carlos-Gomez Zavala has seen a team-high 691 minutes of action on the pitch in 2019.
- Freshman David Sweeney leads the team with 19 saves in just three matches. His nine saves against CSU Bakersfield were a career high and the team's most in a match this season.
- Defender Omar Lemus tops the team with a pair of assists heading into this week's play.
- The Spartans now hold a 3-1-3 record in conference openers since joining the WAC.
KEEPING UP WITH KANSAS CITY:
- San José State has played Kansas City seven times in program history, leading the all-time series with a record of 4-2-1.
- The Spartans have won both of their previous home matches against the Roos, winning 2-0 in 2015 and 4-3 in 2017. Current Spartan midfielder tallied one of the goals in that last victory.
- The Roos are 1-5 (0-1 WAC) on the season and are coming off a 4-1 defeat at Air Force on Saturday. The club's lone win came last month, a 2-0 shutout of Western Illinois.
- The team finished the 2018 campaign with a 5-12 record, emerging victorious in its final two matches of the season to end the year with one of the country's longest active winning streaks.
HOVERING AROUND HOUSTON BAPTIST:
- San José State and Houston Baptist have met nine times in program history, leading the all-time series with a record of 5-3-1.
- The Spartans have earned a result in each of the last three meetings, outscoring the Huskies 5-3 in that stretch. In addition, the program holds a 3-0 all-time record at home against Houston Baptist.
- The Huskies enter the second week of conference play with a record of 2-5 (0-1 WAC), falling by a tally of 3-0 at Utah Valley in its last match. They will play one more contest before making the trip to Silicon Valley, facing Seattle University on the road on Friday night.
TOBIN'S TEAM:
- 2019 marks the sixth season at the helm in San José for Tobin, who joined the Spartans after spending the previous 27 seasons as the head coach at CSU Bakersfield.
- Tobin is a native of London, England, graduating from Nonington College in 1983.
- His 338 career victories entering the 2019 campaign ranked No. 10 in all of Division I among active coaches.
- Postseason success has been a staple of Tobin's time in San José as the Spartans have made the Western Athletic Conference title match in both the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
- He has continued to turn out some of the top talent in the conference year in and year out, placing a total of 15 players on the All-Western Athletic Conference Team throughout his tenure.
THE STAFF:
- San José State's coaching staff features three men who each saw success in their collegiate playing days at universities throughout the state.
- Jonathan Lester is a Spartan alumnus and ranks No. 4 on the program's all time saves list with a dominant 225 in just three years.
- Jesus Sanchez played for Tobin at CSU Bakersfield, finishing his four seasons there with 16 goals and 27 assists while compiling a record of 40-22-15.
- Nic Ryan rounds out the staff as a volunteer assistant coach. He played collegiately at UC Santa Barbara, reaching the NCAA Tournament three times in four years with the Gauchos.
- Lester is in his third year on staff with the Spartans, while both Sanchez and Ryan came aboard prior to the start of the 2018 season.
FRESH FACES:
- San José State's 2019 roster features 12 newcomers, nine of which are freshmen.
- 10 of the 12 newcomers hail from California, bringing the team's total to 24 in-state products.
BETTER KNOW A SPARTAN:
- SJSU was one of five teams to receive a first-place vote in the WAC Preseason Poll. The defending WAC Championship runner-up finished sixth in the poll of the conference coaches.
- Tobin has taken the program to back-to-back WAC title match appearances. This year's conference tournament is scheduled for November 13-17 in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
- The San José State squad features a trio of European players in the form of freshman Kasper Poulsgaard, sophomore Finlay Wood and junior Max Allen. Poulsgaard hails from Denmark, while Wood and Allen come to San José from Wales and England, respectively.
- The Spartans will face five NCAA Tournament teams from a year ago in 2019, with both Saint Mary's (September 9) and Air Force (October 27) coming to the Spartan Soccer Complex.
- Senior Jeff Dukes has gotten the job done both on the field and in the classroom, earning Academic All-WAC recognition last season. It was the second such award for Dukes in his collegiate career.
- SJSU prepared for the regular season with a pair of serviceable exhibition matches. The club played a 110-minute friendly at California before returning home and defeating Holy Cross.
THIS YEAR'S SLATE:
- The Spartans seven non-conference opponents represent three different conferences (Big West, WCC, Pac-12).
- Two of SJSU's matches this year (No. 1 Stanford, No. 8 Saint Mary's) came against opponents ranked in the latest United Soccer Coaches Poll.
SOCIAL MEDIA: The men's soccer program can be found on both Twitter (@SanJoseStateMS) and Instagram (@sanjosestatems). Be sure to follow for a behind the scenes look at the team.