CLEVELAND, Ga. (Aug. 22, 2019) – The Truett McConnell University men's soccer team is set to begin the 2019 season on Saturday, Aug. 24, when they host No. 25 Southeastern University at the TMU Soccer Complex.

With the addition of Kentucky Christian University, the Appalachian Athletic Conference now has 12 members with eight qualifying for the AAC tournament. The Bears will open up conference play on September 14 against St. Andrews University at home.

"Our conference is so up and down," Head Coach Rob Miller said. "Any team on any given day can win. With that being said, I think that we have a good core-returning group. We have about 12 or 13 guys who saw a decent amount of minutes on the field last season."

The Bears will be without two-time NAIA All-American Joao Costa and All-AAC first team Giovanni Giraudo. Costa, an AAC player of the year and AAC offensive player of the year, posted 70 goals throughout his time as a Bear and led the nation in shots per game in the 2018 season.

"Costa and Gio are both huge losses but we have had great senior leadership in Evan Gaffney," Miller said. "Last year we battled a lot of injuries. We rarely were ever able to put all of our top players on the field at one time so this year we are really hoping to stay injury free."

Gaffney, the returning senior goalkeeper, was selected as an All-AAC second team member in the 2017 season when the Bears won the AAC tournament for the first time in program history.

"We've got about 10 incomers this year and I feel like several of them will really add to the team right away," Miller said.

Game time is set for 4:00 p.m., on Saturday. Click here to see how you can follow.