By Ryan Brown

The no. 29 Cats’ road trip recently took an upward swing with two victories over High Point and No. 15 Brown at the Gamecock Classic in South Carolina. Game one against High Point started out well with sophomore standout Tyler Riggs scored after 57 seconds off a corner from Charlie Pettys.

After the great start it turned out to be a rocky affair when in the 58^th minute High Points’ Alex Martinez hit the equalizer. The game would go into overtime but in the 92^nd minute Matt Lodge put one past HP goalie Michael Chesler to give UK the 2-1 win in their opening game.

Senior midfielder Josh McCrary said “ we played well we just had trouble finding the net, we needed to keep our focus through the whole game.”

Game two was an offensive explosion from the Cats when they took on nationally ranked Brown.

“Coach Collins pumped us up and got us ready for this game and we came out strong,” McCrary said. “Coming off two losses coach told us we need to find ourselves and we played well and got two wins.”

The UK offense is ranked 2^nd in the nation and they proved it against Brown notching a 5-1 victory. Tyler Riggs added two goals while Josh Mulvany, Josh McCrary, and Brendan Murphy also scored. C.J. Tappel, Matt Lodge, and Jacob Kemper all had two assists and Steve Cabos also had one.

McCrary said this year’s team is close.

“We all live close to each other and hang out all the time,” he said. This closeness has paid dividends on the field with UK now holding a 6-2-1 record on the year.

They have to be close though having to juggle school and a full-time soccer schedule. He said “ it gets tough to have a social life especially when you miss class from being on the road. Its tough missing classes because you have to read and do homework on buses or planes or just whenever you can.”

Standout performer Tyler Riggs has been named the C-USA Offensive Player of the Week for the second time and was placed on the National Team of the Week for the second time this season.

On the year Riggs ranks second in the NCAA in goals at eight and first in total points with twenty.

He was also named to the Gamecock Classis All- Tournament Team notching three goals over the weekend. Josh McCrary, Matt Lodge, and senior defender Brad Walker were also named to the Gamecock Classic All-Tournament Team.