THE SCHEDULE: San José State will kickoff its postseason run in the WAC Tournament quarterfinals on Wednesday against CSU Bakersfield. Kickoff is set for 12:00 p.m. (MT) at Cadet Soccer Stadium.
FOLLOW ALONG: Wednesday's match will be televised on ESPN+ with Jordan Angeli, Roland Vargish, Rachel Vigil on the call. International audiences can view the contest on the WAC Digital Network. Live stats will be available and you can follow every San José State men's soccer game live on Twitter, @SanJoseStateMS.
SIMON SAYS: "Our first aim is always to make the WAC Tournament and our second objective is to go and win it," says head coach Simon Tobin. "We usually play our best soccer at tournament time and we always feel capable of beating any opponent. It has been tough losing in two consecutive championship games but hopefully that will motivate us over the upcoming few games."
FIRST TOUCHES:
- 10 different players (Rodolfo Castro, Nicolas Brenes, Danny Sanchez, Suliman Khorami, Angel Farias, Omar Lemus, Carlos Gomez-Zavala, Eduardo Buenfil, Willy Miranda and Jeff Dukes) have scored a goal this season.
- Castro leads the team in goals (9), points (20), shots (54) and shots on goal (30) in 17 appearances.
- San José State holds an 18-24-4 record in postseason matches throughout program history. The club is 3-4-1 under head coach Simon Tobin and has earned a result in four of its last six tournament tilts.
- All 11 Spartan starters in the team's match at Incarnate Word were Northern California products. The bunch was able to earn the team's first road victory of the season.
- The trip to the postseason will be the team's third in the past three years (have advanced to the final in each of its previous two trips).
- Freshman goalkeeper David Sweeney enjoyed a stretch of over 380 minutes without allowing a goal earlier in the season. Sweeney has recorded four shutout victories in his first year on campus and was named the WAC Defensive Player of the Week back on Oct. 28.
- Midfielder Carlos Gomez-Zavala has played a team-high 1506 minutes this season. The junior is followed closely by classmate and fellow midfielder Max Allen, who has logged 1465 minutes on the pitch.
- Wednesday's meeting between San José State and CSU Bakersfield will be the 20th all-time between the two programs.
WAC-Y TOURNAMENT NOTES:
- San José State owns a 4-7-1 record in WAC Tournament matches. The team has advanced to the tournament's title match in each of the past two seasons.
- This will be the first postseason meeting between the Spartans and CSU Bakersfield since SJSU earned a 1-0 shutout victory in the 2013 WAC Tournament, which was also played at the U.S. Air Force Academy. That 2013 meeting is the only previous postseason matchup between the two programs.
- San José State is looking to earn the WAC's automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament for its first NCAA trip since the 2003 campaign. The Spartans won the MPSF Tournament title that year, knocking off San Diego State (2-1) and New Mexico (3-2) en route to the championship.
NATIONAL STATISTICS UPDATE:
- San José State ranks No. 4 nationally and first in the WAC in shot accuracy (.521), narrowly trailing national-leader Howard (.543). Forward Rodolfo Castro is slotted at No. 37 in the country and second in the conference in the category with a .538 average.
- The Spartans are currently No. 17 nationally in shots on goal per game at a clip of 6.65 per match. Castro (1.75 per game) ranks 21st in the country.
- SJSU has gotten the job done on the defensive pitch as well. The team ranks No. 43 nationally in saves per game (4.41), with freshman goalkeeper David Sweeney slotted at No. 13 with an average of 5.00.
CHECKING ON CSU BAKERSFIELD:
- San José State and CSU Bakersfield have met 19 times in program history, leading the all-time series with a record of 11-7-1.
- Spartan head coach Simon Tobin has coached in all 19 meetings, leading the Roadrunners in the first 12 matches before taking over at the helm in San José for the final seven. All 19 of the meetings have been played over the course of the last 12 years.
- SJSU faced CSU Bakersfield three times in 2013 (Tobin's final year with CSUB), matching a program-high for meetings with an opponent in a single season (1972 vs. UCLA, 2013 vs. Seattle and UNLV).
- San José State has won three in a row against the Roadrunners and has earned results in five of the last six meetings, outscoring them 9-5 in that stretch. It has not lost to CSU Bakersfield in San José since 2013, dropping a 4-3 decision at Spartan Stadium.
- CSUB currently holds a record of 7-10 (6-5 WAC), falling by a tally of 3-1 at California Baptist in its last match.
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 season 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.
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.
ROAD WARRIORS:
- San José State will finish the regular season playing six of its final eight matches on the road, embarking on a pair of three-game road trips across five different states.
- The Spartans have impressed away from home recently, posting an 12-13-6 record in their last 31 matches played outside of the Spartan Soccer Complex.
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 United Soccer Coaches Poll.
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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.