Salt Lake City, Utah – The University of Jamestown men's soccer team will play the latter half of their Rocky Mountain road trip on Saturday, September 5 at 1 p.m. MDT (2 p.m. CDT) against the Westminster Griffins in Salt Lake City.
"Westminster will be a good game," said head coach
Justin Gilfert. "They've tied some of the top teams in the GNAC so we know that we can't start on the slower end and need to play hard right from the first whistle."
Game Information
The Teams
The Jimmies will head into Salt Lake City with a record of 0-0-3 after coming off a 2-2 tie in their road opener to a very solid Colorado Mesa team. Jamestown fell behind 1-0 only a few minutes in, scored twice in the second half to take a lead at one point, and battled the Mavericks to a draw over in Grand Junction.
Nuutti Norhomaa and
Andrei Filho had the two goals for the Jimmies while
Valon Ismaili had another great game in net with 10 saves on 12 shots faced.
The four UJ goals on the season have been scored by four different players with
Sohiab Bouika el Haddad Kaddour and
Justin Junaid each finding the back of the net in addition to Norhomaa and Filho. Norhomaa leads the Jimmies with three points as the freshman has the only Jamestown assist on the year. Ismaili has played in every minute of all three games defending the Jamestown net and has stayed undefeated with an .875 save percentage.
Just like UJ, Westminster sits a 0-0-3 so far, playing on their games on home turf. The Griffins have battled two Great Northwest Athletic Conference teams so far, tying Northwest Nazarene University 1-1 and Western Oregon University 3-3. Most recently against UC Merced, the Bobcats scored in the first half, but Max Edwards had the equalizer in the second half and the third-straight game for the Griffins resulted in a tie. Shots on goal in the game were 3-3 with UC Merced enjoying a 7-1 advantage in corner kicks.
The Griffins will be another high-quality opponent for the Jimmies after they went 11-7-2 in 2025 and 6-2-2 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. George Acurero has two of the five goals scored so far and Cole Williams has an RMAC-high three assists. Oliver Olsen has played 270 minutes between the pipes with a .545 save percentage and a 1.67 goals-against average.
"Managing our bodies and heads will be the two biggest keys for us to be successful and walk away with 3 points," Gilfert noted.
Historical Matchups
The Jimmies and Griffins have clashed twice in the past 20 years, both when each college was still in the NAIA. Westminster took down the Jimmies 5-0 all the way back in 2007 in a neutral-site contest in Bismarck, and then again in 2013 at home 1-0.
Team Stats
|
Jamestown |
Westminster |
| Record |
0-0-3 |
0-0-3 |
| Goals / Game |
1.3 |
1.7 |
| Goals Against Average |
1.3 |
1.7 |
| Shots / Game |
7 |
7.3 |
| Shots on Goal / Game |
2.3 |
4.3 |
| Save Percentage |
.875 |
.545 |
| Corner Kicks / Game |
2.3 |
2.7 |
After the Griffins, the Jimmies will head back to the central time zone to play at St. Cloud State University on Wednesday, September 9 at 7 p.m.
