ACC Men’s Soccer Quarterfinals
Pitt (12-4-0, 6-2-0 ACC)
vs.
Virginia (9-5-3, 3-3-2 ACC)
Sunday, Nov. 10, 2024 – 8 PM – ACC Network
Pittsburgh, Pa. – Ambrose Urbanic Field
ACC Network | Stream Here
PSN Coverage: Brentaro Yamane
They’re back — and this time as the top seed in the ACC Tournament after securing the ACC regular season title, finishing two points ahead of runner-up and last season’s National Champions, Clemson.
That’s right, the Pitt Panthers men’s soccer program will begin quest through the postseason on Sunday night, when they host No. 9 seed Virginia in the quarterfinals of the ACC Championship. The winner of Sunday’s match will advance to the semifinals, facing either No. 4 seed SMU or No. 5 seed Wake Forest, in Cary, NC, on Wednesday.
Pitt concluded its historic 2024 regular season with a 12-4 ledger, including a 6-2 mark in ACC play.
Pitt was picked to finish ninth in the league prior to the season, but with veteran Head Coach Jay Vidovich doing more masterful work in adding more talented pieces to the roster and guiding senior leaders who truly grabbed the bull by the horns, this year’s squad has shown it’s very capable of making a deep run through November and December, both in the ACC tournament and in the NCAA tournament too.
With a strong start to the season, Pitt caught lightning in a bottle, spending three weeks as the No. 1 team in the nation and clinching their first regular season ACC title in program history, setting them up for home playoff matches in the conference (and almost certainly the national) tournaments.
But, it won’t be easy.
The ACC tournament will provide a gauntlet of talented teams — none of whom they can take lightly, even Sunday’s opponents, Virginia, who they defeated a few weeks ago, by a 4-1 margin.
Taking Care of the Dirty Work: Pitt men’s soccer seniors spur a championship run
Following last season’s disappointment in the postseason (first round losses at home in both ACC tournament and NCAA tournament) served as a sort of wake up call, spurring the Panthers (and especially their veteran leaders) to take nothing for granted as they head into knockout round phases of the program’s revitalized season.
“The guys that were here last year, they really [hurt their] pride [after] what happened,” Guilherme Feitosa, senior midfielder, told Pittsburgh Soccer Now‘s Griffin Floyd.
“They were like ‘I don’t want to be part of a losing program, I don’t want to be part of a program that loses in the early stages of the NCAA Tournament.’ And us coming back with that mentality also raises the level of the guys at the bottom of the group.”
Vidovich also said that his seniors’ willingness to take on the “dirty work” of coaching, holding each other to a higher standard after lackadaisical or selfish play burned them in 2023, helps make his life easier.
“It makes your job easier, it allows you to do different things. That means they’re taking care of a lot of the dirty work. This team is self-policed, it really does take care of a lot of the dirty work you don’t have to do,” Vidovich said. “When individually they’ve got that ambition to also police themselves, and then when the collective is doing it, that’s when you have something magic. And we’re hoping to get there.”
Virginia Cavaliers: A Closer Look
Pitt has played in the ACC Tournament Final just one time (a loss at Clemson in 2021) — so lifting the conference tournament hardware is something that this program would love to do — and they’ll get started in this quest by taking on Virginia in a rematch of its 4-1 victory on Oct. 25 at Ambrose Urbanic Field.
With that victory, Pitt snapped Virginia’s five match winning streak, which was the third-longest streak in Division I coming into the match.
Defensively, Pitt limited Virginia to only five shot attempts with just one coming on frame. Of note, Virginia came into that match averaging 12.9 shots per game.
The ninth-seeded Cavaliers have since bounced back and are coming off a 2-1 come-from-behind victory over eighth-seeded and 21st-ranked NC State on Wednesday.
Virginia tallied a pair of second half-goals in a 20-second span. The win marked UVA’s first comeback win in the ACC tournament since a 3-1 win over Clemson in the 2019 title game.
Virginia’s Nick Dang leads the Cavaliers this season with six goals on the year. Dang’s goal tally currently ranks first among defenders in NCAA Division I.
PITT MSOC MATCH NOTES
No. 1 in RPI
Despite dropping three of its last five matches, Pitt holds the number one spot in the latest RPI rankings. The Panthers own an impressive 6-1 record in quadrant 1 matches and have five wins over teams ranked in the top 20 of RPI.
National Rankings
Pitt ranks seventh in the country in goals against average (.750) and 15th in goals (36). The Panthers also rank sixth nationally in goal differential (26). Individually, senior midfielder Guilherme Feitosa ranks second in the ACC and 12th nationally with nine assists this season.
PSN’s RECENT PITT MSOC COVERAGE
Taking Care of the Dirty Work: Pitt men’s soccer seniors spur a championship run
Pitt Men’s Soccer slides in poll ahead of ACC Tournament
Pitt Men’s Soccer falls 2-0 to Syracuse; claims first-ever ACC regular season title
Pitt Men’s Soccer crushes Cavaliers 4-1, secures share of ACC title
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