Soccer to honor seniors

Just as the South Florida men’s soccer season is coming to an end, soon the seniors will be closing out their careers.

As the Big East tournament looms, the Bulls (10-4-2, 6-3-1) have their sights set on their last home game of the regular season against Rutgers on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

For senior night, the Bulls will honor seniors Yohance Marshall, Kevon Neaves, Jason Devenish, Jordan Seabrook, Gonzalo Ramella and Joris Claessens for their time spent wearing green and gold.

“The best part about this team is its senior class,” coach George Kiefer said. “You look at them as players and they’ve all played a lot, but you also look at their character. Sometimes you get a team where the older players feel like they’re above everyone else and need to be rude and get freshmen to do more. These guys have really taken the freshmen and sophomores under their wing.”

For USF to bounce back from Tuesday’s loss to Cincinnati, Kiefer said it is important that the team’s emotions are kept in check.

“The best thing we’ve done as a team this year is we don’t get too high when we win and too low when we lose,” Kiefer said. “We’ve got a mature group and we’re looking forward to playing at home Saturday night.”

As was the case with Cincinnati, Rutgers (6-7-3) is fighting to keep its tournament hopes alive. The Bulls have lost three straight to the Scarlet Knights. Junior midfielder Francisco Aristeguieta said there is a lot of motivation for the team to play well, especially because it’s the seniors’ last game.

“We’ll practice hard this week,” he said. “We made some mistakes and didn’t play up to our capability. We’ll fix it, though, and be ready for next game.”

Kiefer said he is proud of how far the seniors have come.

“I’ve been with these guys for four years now and they’ve been a really good class,” he said. “They’ve been successful at USF, on and off the field.”