FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
Tuesday, October 20, 2026
 
James Madison’s Visit to Marshall Highlights Week 10 of Sun Belt Men’s Soccer
 
NEW ORLEANS – Sun Belt Men’s Soccer hits week 10 of the 2026 season and the first with two conference matches in the same seven-day span. (RV) Marshall (6-2-4, 2-1-2 Sun Belt) hosts (RV) James Madison (7-4-2, 4-0-1 Sun Belt) with the Dukes looking to put distance between themselves and the four-way tie for second place below them.
 
All five matches on Wednesday, Oct. 21, will be streamed on ESPN+.
 
AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR
We're over halfway through Sun Belt play and all 10 programs have four conference contests left before the postseason. Those four matches will be played over the next two weeks. James Madison (4-0-1), the preseason No. 8 pick in the Sun Belt, holds a five-point advantage atop the league table with 13 points. Four teams are all tied for second place (South Carolina, Georgia Southern, Marshall and West Virginia) with eight points while UCF is just behind with 7 points at sixth.
 
The Dukes are the only conference unbeaten remaining ahead of their trip to Marshall on Wednesday. They have yet to play Kentucky, Old Dominion and West Virginia, but the regular season title is still in reach. If the season ended today, Kentucky (1-3-1) and Old Dominion (1-4-0) are outside of the Sun Belt Tournament field. Georgia State (1-3-1) holds the tiebreaker over Kentucky at the moment with a better goal differential against common league opponents (even for GSU, -5 for UK).
 
Georgia State travels to Old Dominion to lead things off on Wednesday with a 5 p.m. CT kickoff. Both teams will be desperate for a win to stay above the conference tournament cut off line.
Coastal Carolina heads to Kentucky as the Wildcats will look to keep themselves in the postseason conversation. The Chanticleers are coming off a 2-1 loss to Marshall while Kentucky last fell to West Virginia, 4-0. UCF visits West Virginia in a table-shaking match as the Knights sit just behind the Mountaineers in the standings. UCF drove to a 5-1 win over Old Dominion last time out while West Virginia handed Kentucky a 4-0 loss. Georgia Southern and South Carolina meet for a chance to break their tie as well. Both are surprise picks for the postseason after being picked fifth and sixth ahead of the 2026 campaign. SC last fell to Georgia State while GS fell to James Madison, 5-0.
 
HEARTY HANSEN
Hansen recorded his second multi-goal contest of the 2026 season with a brace in UCF’s 5-1 win over (RV) Old Dominion. He now paces the Knights with seven total goals on the campaign, topping his single-season career best. The Cleveland, North Carolina, native is playing his third season with the Knights after red shirting as a freshman in 2023. He leads the squad with 15 points, seven goals, 22 shots, 13 shots on goal and a .591 shot-on-goal percentage. He also sports two game-winning goals this year. He ranks third in the Sun Belt in goals (7), third in points (15) and is tied-sixth in shots on goal (13).
 
RELENTLESS ROBERTO
Roberto, a native of Santos, Brazil, helped Marshall to a 2-0-0 week with road wins over UNC Greensboro (Oct. 13) and Coastal Carolina (Oct. 17). He came off the bench in both contests, taking the field in the 35th minute at UNCG before striking for the game-winning goal at 44:44. He continued his hot streak into the conference weekend, again coming off the bench at Coastal Carolina in a tie game. While he played just 29 minutes, he scored with 2:12 to go to give Marshall a 2-1 advantage and the eventual conference win. His defensive efforts also limited Thundering Herd opponents to just two goals on the week. Roberto was able to play up and down the field as a converted forward and assisted the Herd in their week’s success.
 
POLL PARTY
Four Sun Belt Conference programs were listed in the most recent United Soccer Coaches Poll.
South Carolina and West Virginia stayed inside the top 25 for the eighth and fifth respective week, marking the 10th consecutive week with at least two top 25 teams from the Sun Belt. James Madison appears for the first time this season in the receiving votes as does Marshall after two weeks without mention of the Thundering Herd. The Sun Belt now has four teams listed on the poll for the sixth time this season and now owns nine weeks out of 10 with at least three teams mentioned.
 
THE BEST IS IN THE BELT
The Sun Belt is well-represented among the NCAA's statistical top 10s this season across multiple statistical categories. Georgia State is sixth with 5.57 saves per game and ninth in save percentage with a .830 mark. James Madison is sixth with a .538 shutout percentage. Old Dominion is second in shot accuracy with a .535 percentage, fifth with 36 total goals, sixth with 2.77 goals per game, ninth with 7.62 points per game and 10th with 99 total points. South Carolina ranks 10th with a .769 W-L-T percentage. UCF is seventh with a .500 shutout percentage. West Virginia ranks seventh in both corner kicks per game (7.25) and shutout percentage (.500). Coastal Carolina, Old Dominion, South Carolina, UCF, and West Virginia are all tied with a perfect 1.000 success rate in penalty kicks this year.
 
RPI SUPERSTARS
Nine !! Sun Belt teams are inside the top 100 of the NCAA Division I RPI. South Carolina (6th), West Virginia (30th), Georgia Southern (31st), James Madison (35th), Marshall (37th), Old Dominion (38th), UCF (69th), Coastal Carolina (96th), Georgia State (98th). Kentucky sits at 134th as well to round out the group. The Sun Belt is third in conference RPI ratings and is one of three conferences with at least nine teams in the top 100 joining the ACC (15), Big Ten (11).
 
NATIONAL NOTICE
West Virginia forward Pablo Pozos is in the national spotlight after earning a spot on the Missouri Athletic Club Hermann Trophy Watch List earlier this year. He also notched in on the United Soccer Coaches Players to Watch listing and was ranked 53rd in the TopDrawerSoccer.com Preseason Top 100. UCF’s Takahiro Fujita also made the United Soccer Coaches listing and ranked 50th in TDS’s Top 100.
 
MIDSEASON MARVELS
Three Sun Belt Men’s Soccer athletes earned a spot on the Hermann Trophy Midseason Watch List as announced by the Herman Trophy Midseason Watch List Committee and the United Soccer Coaches. South Carolina’s Alejandro Velazquez-Lopez, West Virginia’s Pablo Pozos and Old Dominion’s Lewis Rourke represent the trio of Sun Belt players named to the coveted list.
As noted before, Pozos was a preseason selection on the same list while Velazquez Lopez and Rourke are on the 30-man listing for the first time this season.
Fifteen members of the midseason watch list will be selected as semifinalists on Dec. 4 to be voted on by NCAA Division I head coaches. From there, three players will be named finalists with the 2026 recipient named on Jan. 8, 2027, at the Missouri Athletic Club in Saint Louis, Missouri.
 
TITLE DEFENSES
Reigning Sun Belt regular season champion Kentucky is looking to turn things around after a 1-8-3 start to 2026. 2025 Sun Belt Tournament Champion UCF look to continue building on their 2025 momentum and 6-3-3 start to 2026. Historically, repeat conference champions are hard to come by as four different teams have hoisted the Sun Belt Championship Trophy since 2022
They are: Kentucky in 2022, Marshall in 2023, West Virginia in 2024, and UCF in 2025
 

Date	Time (CT)	Matchup	Coverage
Wednesday, Oct. 21	5 p.m.	Georgia State at Old Dominion	ESPN+ | Stats
Wednesday, Oct. 21	6 p.m.	Coastal Carolina at Kentucky	ESPN+ | Stats
Wednesday, Oct. 21	6 p.m.	UCF at No. 25 West Virginia	ESPN+ | Stats
Wednesday, Oct. 21	6 p.m.	Georgia Southern at No. 18 South Carolina	ESPN+ | Stats
Wednesday, Oct. 21	6:15 p.m.	(RV) James Madison at (RV) Marshall	ESPN+ | Stats