Fall Season in Review: Men’s Soccer

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros men’s soccer team saw plenty of good things this fall season that can be used to continue the build for the future.

The Vaqueros finished the season with four wins and five ties, four of those ties came in Western Athletic Conference (WAC) play. If the Vaqueros could have flipped those ties into wins, then it could have been a different story at the end of the season.

No matter the outcome of the matches or of the season, the Vaqueros played throughout the season with confidence.

“When you look at the season, you look at in two-folds,” UTRGV Head Coach Bryheem Hancock said. “You have the non-conference and conference play. I thought this year there were a lot of opportunities for us. We had four ties in conference play, and you look back at it and any of those matches could have turned into a win. Going into the final four matches of the regular season, I thought the guys were confident in the way they were playing and when you look at the stats, except for the scoreline, most games we controlled it, and the guys feel that way too. I think the hard two parts in the game of soccer is scoring goals and conceding goals. For us, that will be a big focus in the offseason.”

The Vaqueros showed flashes of how good they could be early on in the season as they opened the season with a win at Lindenwood, but they really showed their grittiness against one of the best teams in the country in No. 16 SMU.

The Mustangs grabbed a 3-0 lead after halftime but the Vaqueros two goals in the span of five minutes and had a chance to tie the match before falling. It was a great experience for the squad knowing they could compete with one of the best and that will be something that will give confidence for next season as well.

“We have a lot of guys coming back and who have now played a season, who showed a lot of improvement from last spring, and now it’s about taking that last step to get the scoreline to indicate what we have shown in the last year or year and a half. We played a team that is still in the NCAA’s Elite 8 in SMU. We were down at the half at their place, in a hostile environment. We came back and got two and could have easily tied the match at the end. That indicates that we have improved a ton from last season and that’s what we need, just to improve and the scoreline will show that.”

The Vaqueros really put a focus on building their chemistry in the spring and it really showed in the fall. UTRGV scored 22 goals this season across 10 different goal scorers and recorded 20 assists after recording just nine the season before.

UTRGV found different ways to score, which made it harder for teams to defend and prepare for. Junior KG Sukati, sophomore Keaviano Francis, and freshman Pablo Torre tied for the team lead with four goals while Sukati, Francis, and sophomore Jaime Carrillo tied for the team lead with 10 points each.

Carrillo led the team with six assists with senior Cesar Baltazar and junior Kimito Fritz each added three assists of their own.

“I think it’s a lot better because teams can’t gameplan for one or two guys,” Hancock said. “When you have multiple guys that can step up and are confident in front of the goal, then it’s harder to defend that. It’s easier to zero in on one or two guys. That helped us a lot with our balance of how we were able to play. We would build at times, sit back of the line and transition, we were direct at times. I think we had a lot of different ways to score goals and that was a big reason why we had a lot of different scorers this season.”

Francis and Torre were rewarded for their efforts this season as they took home WAC honors. Francis was named to the All-WAC Second Team while Torre was named to the WAC All-Freshman Team.

Francis finished the season with points (10) and goals (4) while leading the team in shots (30), shots on goal (16) and finished fourth on the team with two assists.  Torre finished tied for the team lead in goals (4), finished fourth in points (9) and second in shots (30) and shots on goal (12).

Both were a key to the Vaqueros’ success offensively and Coach Hancock is excited to see what they can accomplish in the future.

“Their awards speak for themselves,” Hancock said. “They are players that we expect to come in every day and show up. They did that. We expect for them to have bright futures moving forward and if they continue that and the guys around them continue to improve as a whole then it could mean great things for us next season.”

While there were several games that could have turned into wins, there was one game that really encompassed who the Vaqueros really were this fall.

The 5-1 win over Air Force had a little bit of everything. It showed the Vaqueros resilience, tenacity, and offensive capabilities.

“There were several moments we could look back on,” Hancock said. “I think that match against Air Force, a team that you know prides itself in outworking others in any conditions. A 12 p.m. match. It’s easy to go through the motions in that type of game against a team that is going to come with a lot of energy, be very physical, and not quit until the end and to see, after facing a little bit of adversity in the beginning with the PK, the guys respond with five goals. It felt like it could have been 10. It was an enjoyable moment that showcased what the team is capable of and what we could see more of in the future.”

The fall season saw bright spots all throughout the season, but Coach Hancock is confident that the Vaqueros can take that next step.

It will be important to build on the good things from the fall and make them better in 2025.

“We have to continue improve in our development first,” Hancock said. “Then it’s about recruiting and bringing in guys at certain positions to continue to compete with the group that is here. We need to strengthen our togetherness. That team bonding aspect that was a big improvement last season and we saw that correlate to how we played in matches. We can’t let that slip and we need to continue to improve that as much as the development of each guy that is here in the program.”