DePauw at Ohio Wesleyan

The Ohio Wesleyan University men's soccer team will face DePauw in a semifinal matchup of the North Coast Athletic Conference tournament at 7 p.m. on Thursday at the Jay Martin Soccer Complex.

Ticket prices for NCAC tournament games are $7 for adults and $3 for children 18 and under.  Students bearing a valid ID from an NCAC institution will be admitted free of charge.  There will be no re-entry, and no containers are permitted.

Ohio Wesleyan (11-3-3) is the No. 1 seed in the tournament.  The Battling Bishops shared the NCAC championship with a 6-0-2 record, Ohio Wesleyan's first conference championship since 2014 and its league-leading 24th NCAC title.  Ohio Wesleyan is making its 23rd NCAC tournament appearance.  The Bishops have won the NCAC tournament title 11 times, most recently in 2022.

Senior forward Franklin Rodriguez (Santiago, Dominican Republic/Berkshire (Mass.)) leads the Bishops and is tied for third in the NCAC with 9 goals this season, while senior forward Jaggar Brooker (Powell/Olentangy Liberty) is tied for fifth in the league with 8 goals and junior forward Christopher Guerra (Columbus/Worthington Kilbourne) has 6 goals.  Brooker leads the league with 12 assists and ranks sixth in NCAA Division III with an average of 0.75 assists per game, and freshman back Alex Bucher (Centerville) is tied for second in the NCAC with 6 assists on the season.  Brooker and Rodriguez rank 2-3 in the conference in points with 28 and 22 respectively.  Junior Sam Whitman (Baltimore, Md./Friends School of Baltimore) ranks second in the NCAC in goals-against average (0.868) and saves percentage (.808) and has been part of 7 shutouts.

DePauw (9-4-5) is the No. 4 seed in the tournament.  The Tigers placed fourth in the NCAC standings with a 3-2-3 mark.  DePauw has won the NCAC tournament twice, more recently in 2012.

Forward Braden Murphey leads DePauw with 8 goals on the season, tied for fifth in the conference, while forward Matthew Fogo has scored 5.  Goalkeeper Sam Ortner has compiled a goals-against average of 1.000 and a saves percentage of .729, ranking third and fourth respectively in the conference.

Ohio Wesleyan and DePauw have met 5 times in the NCAC tournament, most recently in 2015, when the Bishops won, 2-0, in a semifinal matchup.  Ohio Wesleyan has won 2 of the 5 meetings, DePauw has won once, and the teams have tied twice, with each advancing on penalty kicks once.

In this year's regular-season meeting, Ohio Wesleyan won by a 3-2 count on Oct. 29 in Greencastle, Ind., as Guerra scored a pair of goals, including what proved to be the game-winner.

The advancing team from Wednesday's game will move on to the NCAC tournament championship game, scheduled to be played on Sunday on the campus of the higher remaining seed.