Men’s soccer welcomes Texas College, Southwest this week in conference play

The familiar confines of The Cage on the campus of Texas A&M University-Victoria is a welcome sight for the A&M-Victoria men's soccer team.

After a two-week road trip, the Jaguars (5-5-1, 1-2-1) are back home this week to face off with Texas College (3:30 p.m. Thursday) and University of the Southwest (3:30 p.m. Saturday) in a pair of Red River Athletic Conference matches.

This kicks off a four-match homestand for A&M-Victoria as the team enters its final seven matches of the regular season.

"It's going to be nice (playing at home)," said head coach Vince Martinez. "Playing on the road against good teams, it's not always easy. This will be six games in like 17 days for the boys and, with all the travelling, it's definitely challenging. But it'll be nice to be at home for a couple weeks and we're looking forward to playing this week."

As they enter the latter stages of the season, the Jaguars are treating each match as if it's a playoff match.

A&M-Victoria is on four points and is tied for seventh place in the conference standings, which would be the sixth and final spot in the RRAC tournament (North American is not eligible for postseason competition). However, they're tied with Louisiana Christian and Jarvis, meaning the team needs to pick up results in the final four weeks to secure a tournament spot.

"Every game matters," Martinez said. "As we're into conference play and 1-2-1, we're looking at every game as a playoff game. If we want to make the postseason, we have to take it one game at a time. But every game that we play is close to being a playoff game because everyone's beating up on each other. So, finishing in the top six is our priority right now. We've got to take care of business this week."

The Jaguars are looking to get their offense going after scoring two goals last week, including the team's first penalty of the year, dispatched by Baillie O'Reilly against Texas A&M-Texarkana on Saturday. Mosiah Bonney recorded his first goal of the season in the draw at Jarvis Christian with an assist from Jervan Matthew.

A&M-Victoria is 3-0 this season when they score two or more goals.

"Confidence is everything," Martinez said. "Taking care of business and getting on the scoresheet is going to be important. We created opportunities last week, we just didn't finish. We're hoping, this week, things change a little bit and the ball bounces our way this time. We've got to start banging in more goals."

A&M-Victoria is 9-0-2 all-time against Texas College and 10-3-2 against Southwest.