GREENSBORO, N.C. – The 2022 Southern Conference tournament and regular-season champion UNC Greensboro men's soccer team has earned its 12th bid to the NCAA Division I Championship, receiving the No. 12 seed and a first-round bye.
UNCG (13-1-4, 4-0-1 SoCon) earns the SoCon's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament after capturing its fifth SoCon Championship title this past Saturday with a 2-1 victory over Mercer University. The Spartans are in the NCAA Division I tournament for the 12th time in program history.
UNCG will host the winner of the first-round game of Wake Forest University (14-5-0, 5-3-0 ACC) versus Ohio State University (10-3-5, 4-2-2 Big Ten). The Demon Deacons will serve as the host for that game on Thursday, Nov. 17, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina at Spry Stadium.
This is the 21st time appearing in a NCAA tournament since the program started, with seven appearances at the Division III level and two at the Division II level. This will be the second time under fourth-year head coach Chris Rich, a two-time SoCon Coach of the Year.
The Spartans defeated the third-seeded Mercer Bears at UNCG Soccer Stadium in the 2022 SoCon Championship. UNCG won its second tournament title in three years, the most recent during the 2020-21 spring season. UNCG earned its fourth SoCon double crown in program history (regular-season and tournament championships). The last time they won the double was 2006. The Spartans also won it in 2005 and 1998.
Marco Afonso, J.C. Ngando, Basile Marc, and Ismail El Harchi were named to the SoCon All-Tournament Team. El Harchi was named the Most Outstanding Player, UNCG’s seventh in SoCon history. Niclas Wild earned the Pinnacle Award, which is given to the student-athlete with the highest grade-point average on the championship-winning team.
With the win at UNCG Soccer Stadium, the Spartans extended their unbeaten streak to 9-0-1 at home. This is the first undefeated season at home since 2002, when the team went 8-0.
Prior to the SoCon Championship, the Spartans entered the match ranked seventh in the United Soccer Coaches Poll and 12th in the NCAA RPI rankings. UNCG is also third in the United Soccer Coaches South Region poll and ninth in the TopDrawerSoccer and eighth College Soccer News Division I polls.
The 48-team field is made up of champions from 23 conferences, who qualified automatically, in addition to 25 teams that were selected at-large. The top 16 teams were seeded and received first-round byes. All first-round games will be played Thursday, Nov. 17, on campus sites, while all second-round action will take place Sunday, Nov. 20. The third round will be played Nov. 26 and 27, while the quarterfinals will be played Dec. 2 and 3.
ESPNU will provide live coverage of all three games at the Men's College Cup on Dec. 9 and 12 at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina. This will be the fourth season in a row and eighth time overall the Men's College Cup has been to Cary with Maryland (2005), Virginia (2009, 2014), Wake Forest (2007), Georgetown (2019), Marshall (2020) and Clemson (2021) winning previously.