VILLANOVA, Pa. – With a victory in its back pocket, Villanova heads to Ohio Saturday night to meet Akron (6-3-3 overall, 3-0-0 BIG EAST) at FirstEnergy Stadium at 7 p.m. The live stream of the action will be available on ESPN+.
The Wildcats (1-6-4 overall, 0-3-0 BIG EAST) earned a non-league win Tuesday afternoon at the Higgins Soccer Complex, downing Columbia 3-2 on a Jorge Garcia free kick goal at 89:17.
Villanova scored its first goal against the Lions off another free kick. This one came from the left side as Jason Bouregy served a ball into the box that Kyle Dixon was able to re-direct with his head into the net.
Head Coach Mark Fetrow noted that the Wildcats have spent considerable time in training of late hoping to fine tune their set piece efforts.
"We have wanted to be really good on set pieces all year," said Fetrow, who earned his first win as Villanova head coach on Tuesday. "We spent a lot of time in training over the past week focusing on corners and free kicks. We made some tweaks and spent extra time harping on it. I think we've done a good job the last two games creating more opportunities on free kicks and corners.
"Jason is very consistent with his services. Kyle had a great finish on the one the other day. I'm happy for Kyle, that's his first college goal. Any time you have quality service it gives us a chance to have real chances instead of half-chances."
Akron, which joined the BIG EAST as an associate member in Men's Soccer in 2023, has been perfect in league play thus far, most recently posting a 1-0 win over Xavier last weekend. On Tuesday, it got its attack rolling in a 6-1 home turf triumph over Wright State in a non-league affair.
This is the first meeting between the programs as BIG EAST members. The Zips posted a 2-0 win over Villanova in an NCAA opening round meeting in 2016, the only prior matchup between the two programs.
The Wildcats have six remaining regular season games, five of which are conference battles. Villanova will visit Creighton on Oct. 19 before a three-game home stand later this month that kicks off with a BIG EAST contest with Georgetown on Oct. 23 at 3 p.m.
"We got some momentum going against Columbia," stated Garcia on Tuesday. "Now we want to carry that into Akron."
