By Ryan Brown

UK men’s soccer coach Ian Collins is back for his fifteenth year as head of the program and is hoping to add to his 168 career victories. He is surrounded by a few familiar faces that may help him add to his total.

Junior Matt Lodge, UK’s leading goal scorer for his first two years, is coming back this season. He has 10 goals and five assists in his UK career. Last year he was named All-Conference USA and was the first UK soccer player named to the Freshman All-American team since 2009.

UK also returns freshman All-American Dylan Asher, who should play a pivotal role in the backlines’ success this season. He led the team by playing 1,767 minutes out of the 1,813 total minutes a year ago in earning second-team All-Conference honors.

Goalkeeper Tyler Beadle, a redshirt sophomore who has earned freshman All-Conference and All-Conference honors in C-USA, also returns in 2011. Beadle had a goals-against average of 1.30 last year.

Last year, with a tough out-of-conference schedule, UK’s overall record was 7-8-4. The team took third in C-USA with a 4-2-2 record, totaling fourteen points, one point behind second-place University of Central Florida and seven points behind first-place Southern Methodist University. Both teams are ranked in most preseason polls and should be a good test for the Cats this season.