Men's Soccer | 9/18/2015 2:09:00 PM

Friday, September 18, 2015

PORTALES, N.M. — The Greyhound men's soccer team is preparing to host Dallas Baptist University Saturday, heading into the contest with an unbeaten record of 2-0-1. The match will be the home opener for Eastern New Mexico University, with the Patriots sitting at 2-1-1-, with their one loss to University of the Southwest.

Head coach Paul Tate said, "DB is a good team that plays hard.  Everyone works as a team and a unit with them and they always have very good matches."

With the Greyhounds in good health Tate expects a competitive game.  Three ENMU players have two goals a piece, including Carlos Viveros, Roberto Zatarain and Ryan McManus.  They have outscored opponents 8-4 on the season as a team.

"Everybody is back, healthy and ready to go," said Tate.  "We are coming off a nice five or six day break, so everything has been going good and we will move forward with McManus in the midfield and James Gutierrez in the back giving everyone a little boost."

Viveros is currently ranked third in the nation for game winning goals with two scored on the season while the greyhounds goalkeeper Gutierrez is ranked 17^th nationally in saves per game with six a match.

ENMU is scoring at a high clip, with 2.67 goals scored a match compared to opponents 1.33.  More impressive however, is the fact the Greyhounds are very efficient this year, with a shot percentage of .222 compared to their opponents .091.

"We are really working on capitalizing on our opportunities in the box," said Tate.  "I would like to be scoring four goals a game and I think if we can consistently do that we will be in great shape."

After the home stand against DBU, the greyhounds will take to the road for a three game stretch against Lubbock Christian University, St. Mary's University (TX) and St. Edwards University.  The DBU matchup will take place Saturday at 3:00 p.m.