Clemson To Face Maryland In ACC First Round On Thursday

Nov. 12, 2001

Clemson, SC – The tenth-ranked and No. 3 seed Clemson men’s soccer team will face No. 6 seed Maryland this Thursday night at 8:00PM in the opening round of the 2001 ACC Tournament in Clemson. This will be the third time the ACC tournament has been played in Clemson and the Tigers last hosted the event back in 1994. Clemson last won the Tournament back in 1998.

Should the Tigers (14-4, 4-2) defeat Maryland (10-7-1, 1-4-1), they will play again on Friday night at 8:00PM against the winner of Thursday’s 5:30PM game between No. 2 seed North Carolina and No. 7 seed NC State.

The other quarterfinal game scheduled for Thursday is No. 4 seed Wake Forest against No. 5 seed Duke. Start time for that match is 3:00PM. Top-seeded Virginia, which was a perfect 6-0 in ACC play this season, has a bye into Friday’s semifinal round and will face the winner of the Duke-Wake game on Friday at 5:30 p.m.

Clemson earned the third seed in the Tournament by virtue of its 4-2 ACC record this season. The Tigers defeated sixth-ranked Wake Forest on Saturday evening in Clemson, dropping the Demon Deacons to the fourth seed with a conference record of 3-2-1. North Carolina was also 4-2, but the Tar Heels defeated the Tigers, 1-0, on Nov. 3 in Chapel Hill.

Clemson has won 13 out of the last 15 matches against Maryland and is 27-10-1 all-time versus the Terrapins. The two teams have met three times in the history of the ACC Tournament and the Tigers have two of the three matches. Earlier this season on October 28, the Tigers defeated Maryland by a score of 2-0 at Historic Riggs Field. In that match, Paul Souders had a goal and an assist and Steve Rhyne added a goal for the Tigers.

The Tigers are led by senior Ian Fuller and Dimelon Westfield who each have 23 points this season. Sophomore Steven Rhyne has seven goals and seven assists and is second on the team with 21 points. Doug Warren has started 17 out of 18 games and has a 0.75 goal’s against average. He has allowed only 12 goals in 1,439 minutes of play this season.