UNF women’s soccer’s match against Belmont Oct. 25 will feature two teams fighting for positioning at opposite ends of the Atlantic Sun Conference playoff ladder.            

The Ospreys currently sit in eighth place in the A-Sun standings, while the Belmont Bruins sit in second place, one point behind Kennesaw State University. A win over Belmont, added to a win over Lipscomb Oct. 23, could help put UNF ahead of Eastern Tennessee State and Mercer in the standings and move them closer to earning one of the A-Sun’s six playoff spots.

UNF currently has eight points while seventh place ETSU has 12 points and sixth place Mercer has 13 points. UNF must win their remaining two games versus Lipscomb and Belmont and hope that ETSU loses their games against Florida Gulf Coast and Stetson and that Mercer loses to Campbell. 

If UNF wins both games, earning three points for each win, they could tie with Campbell and Stetson who both currently have 14 points, however Campbell still has two games left to play.

Both of UNF’s final matches will be held at home which could give them a valuable home-field advantage. It’s never easy being the away team especially in a match that means so much, Belmont’s women’s soccer head coach Lisa Howe said.

Belmont won last year’s meeting between the two teams at Vanderbilt University 4-0 in route to winning the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament later in the season, and they fell in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Auburn.

“Coach Hamilton [UNF women’s soccer head coach] has made her team better every year, and they are more athletic,” Howe said. “They [UNF] have a good offense. It will be a difficult task for us to minimize their scoring opportunities.”