Albion San Diego will take on the Maryland Bobcats for the third time on Friday, Oct. 21, at Canyon Crest Academy Stadium in hopes of reaching the semifinal round in the team’s inaugural NISA season.

The first meeting saw Albion come out with a 2-1 victory on Aug. 17 with both of its goals coming from forward Alioune Diakhate. The second match was on Oct. 1 with the Bobcats getting the 1-0 win despite another great performance from goalkeeper Ben Roach.

“I think they have a strong attacking front,” said Albion defender Jacob Haupt. “If we control what we need to do in that game, I think we have a really good chance of winning.”

Maryland finished with 32 goals over its 23 games for a 1.4 goal per game average, which is the same as Albion with its 28 goals over 20 games. Both teams are evenly matched on the defensive side as well with Albion giving up 1.15 goals per game compared to Maryland’s 1.22.

“We’ve watched the film, we’ve studied them and we’ve gone over what we did in those games,” Haupt added. “I think we’ll be really prepared for the game on Friday.”

The reason why Albion has home-field advantage for the quarterfinal is thanks to finishing as the fourth seed after its  1-0 victory over top-ranked Cal United Strikers in its season finale on Oct. 8. The result also meant that Maryland could finish no better than fifth place regardless of the results over its final two matches.

“We’re excited to be hosting on Friday night and anticipate great energy in the stadium throughout,” said Albion San Diego head coach Ziggy Korytoski. “It’s always great to be playing in front of our community and our fans knowing that they give us that extra lift that can push us into the next round.”

By the time Albion and Maryland kick off at 6 p.m., both teams will know who their potential semifinal opponent will be since the other quarterfinal game between the Michigan Stars and Syracuse Pulse would have already concluded.

Photo courtesy of David Frerker