WATERBURY, Conn. -- When Post University Men's Soccer hits the pitch this afternoon against the University of the District of Columbia in the First Round of the 2024 NCAA Division II Men's Soccer Championship, it will mark their historic eighth time overall and sixth straight year in the program's illustrious history of reaching the big dance under 20-year Head Coach Ted Haley, who reached his 200th career win earlier this season. 

Getting in with an At-Large bid for the third time ever with the other five appearances being via their five consecutive Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference Championships, a stretch that was snapped this year by Felician University in the Championship Match last weekend in a 1-0 loss down on Wilmington's field, the Eagles will also look to advance out of the First Round for the first time as an At-Large team.

Coming into this year's NCAA Tournament, Post is 0-2-0 in NCAA Tournament First Round matches as an At-Large having fallen to UMass Lowell in the First Round back in 2012, 3-1, and then fellow CACC member Wilmington University as an At-Large team in the First Round in 2013, 2-1, in double overtime. In the five seasons the Eagles qualified for the NCAA Tournament as the automatic qualifier by virtue of winning the CACC, they have fallen in the First Round once, made it to the Second Round once, and the Round of 16 three times, including each of the last two seasons.

This year's Super Region 1 portion of the bracket will feature some familiar foes as well as some new faces starting with seventh-seeded Post's First Round matchup which is against tenth-seeded University of the District of Columbia who the Eagles have never faced in the history of their program. Of the ten teams in their region, Post has never faced three teams including the Firebirds, Bloomsburg University, and Concord University while having faced the University of New Haven, University of Charleston (W.V.), Gannon University, Franklin Pierce University, Southern New Hampshire University, and Felician University.

Being in the bottom half of the Super Region 1 bracket sends the Eagles to the campus of Southern New Hampshire University, who is the two seed, for this First Round matchup against the Firebirds with a chance to play the Penmen on Sunday afternoon while Felician and Bloomsburg will do battle for a shot at getting into the Round of 16 on the same day. New Haven and Concord do battle for the right to play top-seeded Charleston in West Virginia on Sunday while Gannon and Franklin Pierce will look to punch their ticket to the Round of 16 that day too. 

As previously mentioned, among all the teams in the bracket this year, the Eagles finished 1-4-1 as they defeated the University of New Haven at Dillon Stadium in September while tying Felician in the regular season before falling in the CACC Championship against them, 1-0, as well as dropping matches against Gannon (4-0), the Penmen (7-0), and Franklin Pierce (4-0) who was ranked number one in the nation at the time the two sides played each other. 

But when it comes to the University of the District of Columbia, there is no history to look back on besides an NCAA Tournament run as an At-Large in 2017 as the Firebirds made a Cinderella Run as the sixth seed in the East Coast Conference Tournament to win their first-ever ECC Tournament in program history. They would take down three-seeded Roberts Wesleyan, 3-2, before beating two-seeded Mercy University in the Semifinals, 2-1, and then knocking off fifth-seeded Molloy University to win the championship in overtime, 2-1. 

Post's At-Large bid came off the backs of their sixth straight winning season which featured a fourth straight CACC Regular Season Championship, sixth straight appearances in the CACC Championship Match, and a 12-5-3 record overall with four of those losses coming against teams that have qualified for the NCAA Tournament this year and were ranked in the Super East Region 1. The Eagles will look to continue using a balanced scoring attack after having 10 different goal scorers this season, led by freshman midfielder Len Fliss with five goals followed by seven players with at least three goals or more this year. 

At 8-7-4, the Firebirds were led by a pair of six-goal scorers in sophomore midfielder Ignacio Lopez with six goals and six assists in 14 matches played as well as senior forward Santiago Gordillo Martinez with six goals in 17 matches played. The team is led by Head Coach Matthew Thompson who has been with the program since 2011 and helped get the team to their first ECC Tournament back in 2017 where they fell in the ECC Championship Match to top-seeded LIU Post before qualifying for an At-Large Bid into the NCAA Tournament and defeated Southern Connecticut State University for their first NCAA Tournament win in program history. This will be the first time since the 2017 run in which the University of the District of Columbia will make an NCAA Tournament appearance. 

The two teams will kick off at the campus of Southern New Hampshire University at 3:00 PM for the right to play on Sunday against the Penmen. Links to the Live Stats and Live Stream on FloCollege are available on the Post University Men's Soccer schedule page as well as the Post University Athletics home page and below.

Live Stats: https://snhupenmen.com/sidearmstats/msoc/summary
Watch: https://www.flofc.com/live/145668?watchOnWeb=1