SAN DIEGO – After making history and securing their fourth consecutive West Coast Conference championship, the 9th-seeded San Diego men's soccer team are set to host Grand Canyon in the second round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament on Sunday, November 23 at 5:00 p.m. from Torero Stadium.

USD's coming off a thrilling regular season finale when they defeated then 10th ranked Oregon State by a 4-2 final score in Corvallis to secure the league title. The Toreros will be looking for more postseason magic in 2025 after reaching the Sweet Sixteen a season ago with victories over UC Davis and Duke, before ultimately coming up short against the eventual national champions Vermont. 

HOW THE WEST COAST CONFERENCE WAS WON

• USD's thrilling take down of the Beavers featured three second half goals as the Toreros trailed early and battled back a couple of times to regain the advantage. Josh Martinez delivered a rocket of a goal off of a free kick to give San Diego the lead, and then a beautiful two-on-one run between Iain Wagner and Steven Ramirez put the game to bed late.
• The Toreros put together a 7-1-1 record in the WCC as they drew with Santa Clara and fell short against Portland and beat the remaining seven league opponents on their docket. Playing tremendous defense throughout the run, USD totaled six clean sheets against their fellow WCC members. 
• San Diego challenged themselves during the non-conference portion of their schedule as well as they played four ranked opponents and only ended up on the losing side of a result one time. 

SCOUTING THE LOPES

• Grand Canyon enters Sunday evening's match with a 13-3-5 overall record to go along with their 3-1-3 mark in conference play, ending the season third in the Western Athletic Conference. A strong finish from the Lopes helped them win the WAC Tournament championship to earn their league's automatic bid to the Big Dance. To start off the NCAA Tournament, GCU traveled to Los Angeles to play the Big Ten champions UCLA under harsh, rainy conditions. The first 110 minutes of played yielded no goals as the match went into penalty kicks that Grand Canyon won 3-1 to advance to the second round.
• The Antelopes' offense this season has been led by their clinical freshman forward Junior Diouf who led the team with 17 goals and tied for the team lead in assists with six. The Senegal native had a magical first year of collegiate soccer as he was awarded the WAC Freshman of the Year and even earned the WAC Offensive Player of the Year for 2025. He scored a brace five different times on the season, helping his team win the WAC tournament scoring two against Utah Tech and the game-winning goal in the 2-1 victory in the final against San Jose State.

CLEANING UP CONFERENCE AWARDS

• The Toreros dominated the WCC conference awards as head coach Brian Quinn earned the conference's Coach of the Year, Ethan Warne was named the Defensive Player of the Year and Lucca Adams took home the WCC's Goalkeeper of the Year.
• San Diego also had nine student-athletes who were selected to the league's All-Conference teams as Lucca Adams, Iain Wagner and Ethan Warne were named to the First Team. Cesar Bahena, Noah James and Steven Ramirez were Second Team picks, and Vicente Ayala, Josh Martinez and Owen Walz were All WCC Honorable Mention selections. 

DEFENSIVE JUGGERNAUT

• The Toreros put together another phenomenal defensive season together as they ranked second in the WCC with just 14 goals allowed in the team's 18 matches played.
• Adams was especially stellar in goal as he posted a .750 save percentage and led the conference with only six goals allowed and a microscopic 0.47 goals against average. 
• USD's redshirt freshman became the second Torero to win the conference's goalkeeper of the year award after Donovan Parisian took home the trophy in 2024. 

VERSATILE OFFENSE

• San Diego's offense was stellar throughout the 2025 season as they ranked third in the conference with 35 total goals scored by 10 different Torero student-athletes. 
• Iain Wagner led the way for USD with eight goals and accumulated a team-best 20 points as well. Making their mark up front in the San Diego attack Ramirez scored seven goals and Cesar Bahena found the back of the net five times as well.
• Doing his part off of the team's bench, Devin Zachry scored a trio of goals in his first year as part of the USD program. 

ALL-TIME SERIES AGAINST GRAND CANYON

• Sunday evening's matchup in San Diego will be only the fourth ever matchup and the first postseason battle between the Lopes and Toreros.  The last two matchups between the schools have been 1-0 victories with the home side emerging victorious both times. 
• In 2024, the 1-0 victory was the fourth in a row for San Diego, as they improved to 6-0-2 in non-conference action. It was the third straight shutout for the Toreros, as GCU was limited to only one shot on goal early in the game in the 35th minute that was saved by Donovan Parisian. In a tight physical game, with many fouls and few clear goal scoring chances, it was Luca Fava who drove in a low cross into the box that Taj Eagleston laid off to Samy Kanaan, who scored his team leading fifth goal of the season  that gave USD the lead. The defense then held their own for the rest of the game to preserve the 1-0 lead and earn the home victory.