Game Notes (PDF)

In its final regular season road trip of the season, No. 21 Butler takes its BIG EAST-best record of 6-1 to Marquette Saturday night. The 8 p.m. (Eastern, 7 p.m. Central/Milwaukee) match will air on the BIG EAST Digital Network, part of the FOX Sports Go app.

Butler's 2-0 win at Seton Hall Wednesday clinched a spot in the six-team BIG EAST Tournament and also guaranteed the Bulldogs a top-four seed, which means Butler will host its first action of the BIG EAST Tournament. That would either be a quarterfinal match-up as the No. 3 or 4 seed, or a semifinal contest as the No. 1 or 2 seed that includes a quarterfinal bye.

Butler controls its own destiny for a BIG EAST regular season title and the tournament No. 1 seed with two matches remaining. A win or tie Saturday at Marquette would clinch a top-two seed for the Bulldogs and a home semifinal contest. A win coupled with a Georgetown loss Saturday would guarantee Butler the BIG EAST regular season title and No. 1 seed.

Butler enters the Saturday match with a 10-4-1 overall record and has posted four consecutive shutouts. The Bulldogs have now held their opponents scoreless for the last 409:50 of game action, dating back to the Oct. 10 loss to SIUE.

Those four shutouts include a 0-0 tie against No. 1 Indiana on Oct. 18. That in-state match was played in front of 6,105 fans, the largest crowd in Butler men's soccer history and the biggest gathering since the Sellick Bowl was renovated in 2010. The previous record was 5,029 for the 2013 match against Indiana.

The Bulldogs' BIG EAST 6-1 mark is slightly ahead of Georgetown's mark of 5-1-1. The Hoyas gave Butler its only BIG EAST loss of the season. Butler has posted shutouts in five of its seven BIG EAST matches with Eric Dick in goal for each of those contests.

In Wednesday's 2-0 win at Seton Hall, Butler got goals from sophomores Lewis Suddick and Isaac Galliford. The first-half penalty kick by Suddick proved to be his fourth game-winning goal of the season, which leads the BIG EAST. The preseason All-BIG EAST selection now has five tallies on the season. Galliford has two goals in 2017. Butler improved to 4-0-1 all-time against Seton Hall and has never allowed a goal to the Pirates.

Marquette enters Saturday's match with a BIG EAST mark of 3-3-1, which currently has them in fifth place in the standings and in the BIG EAST Tournament field. All three of the Golden Eagles' wins have come in BIG EAST play this season. Butler and Marquette have split eight all-time meetings. The Bulldogs have won three straight in the series, including a 2-1 Senior Night win in Indianapolis in 2016. Suddick and David Goldsmith scored in that contest.

The double-overtime result against the top-ranked Hoosiers was the Bulldogs' first tie of the season as they had previously won all four of their overtime contests. It was the fifth straight match-up between the in-state rivals to go to overtime.

For his role in last week's shutouts, senior captain Eric Leonard was selected as the BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Week. The midfielder moved to the back line for the Indiana match as the Bulldogs were forced to play without center back Joe Moulden, who had accumulated five yellow cards. Entering that match, Moulden was the only Bulldog to play every minute this season. Leonard stayed in the back line against Villanova, this time playing alongside Moulden in the middle as Kieran Geldenhuys moved out wide. Butler faced only a combined 15 shots in the week's contests against Indiana and Villanova. Geldenhuys earned a spot on the Top Drawer Soccer's Team of the Week for his work in the week of shutouts. Leonard stayed along the back line in Wednesday's contest with Seton Hall.

Butler is 5-1-1 at the Sellick Bowl in 2017.

The Bulldogs are ranked No. 15 overall in the RPI rankings released by the NCAA Monday, Oct. 23. Butler has wins over four top-100 RPI opponents already this season (in addition to the tie against No. 1 Indiana): Creighton (No. 37), South Florida (No. 39), Villanova (No. 70), and St. John's (No. 92). Upcoming opponents include Xavier (No. 55). Butler's four losses on the season include Western Michigan (No. 6 in the RPI), Louisville (No. 10), and Georgetown (No. 11).
 
The Bulldogs are ranked No. 21 in this week's United Soccer Coaches poll, as well as No. 12 in the Top Drawer Soccer poll, No. 20 by College Soccer News, and No. 23 in the Soccer America rankings.

Dick has orchestrated shutouts in eight matches this season, including five of the team's seven BIG EAST matches. For his efforts, Dick was named BIG EAST Goalkeeper of the Week on Monday, Oct. 16. He has earned the honor in four of the nine weeks this season. Dick earned a spot on the BIG EAST's weekly honor roll Monday, Oct. 23, missing out on the Goalkeeper of the Week honor despite pitching two shutouts.
 
Dick has 27 career shutouts. He has a 0.83 goals against average this season, which is third in the conference. His 4.0 saves per game are second in the BIG EAST. His .824 save percentage is third in the conference. He is one of two BIG EAST keepers with eight shutouts this season.
 
Butler's Brandon Guhl scored both goals in the win over DePaul Oct. 14, giving him a BIG EAST-best nine on the season. Those nine goals are tied for the BIG EAST lead and are in the Top 25 nationally. These are the first collegiate goals for the sophomore transfer from SMU. Guhl added an assist on Galliford's goal at Seton Hall Wednesday and now is alone atop the BIG EAST with 21 points.
 
Suddick has five assists on the season, which are fifth in the BIG EAST. Including an assist on Guhl's second goal of the DePaul match, Galliford has four assists on the season. Suddick was named the No. 84 player nationally in a midseason list authored by Top Drawer Soccer.
 
The Bulldogs trailed 2-0 in the match with Creighton Sept. 16 before two goals from Guhl in the final 15 minutes of regulation tied the contest. Less than three minutes into overtime, sophomore Alex Lehtinen headed in the game-winner off a Suddick corner kick. It was the first goal of Lehtinen's Butler career.
 
With the two goals against Creighton (in addition to an assist on Joel Harvey's game-winner earlier in the week in the 1-0 win over Evansville), Guhl was named BIG EAST Offensive Player of the Week and earned spots on the national teams of the week for College Soccer News and Top Drawer Soccer Sept. 18. Guhl joined Jared Timmer (Aug. 28) and Suddick (Sept. 4) as Butler players have been selected for the conference's offensive weekly award. Additionally, Dick has earned weekly goalkeeper honors four times.
 
Butler's 10 wins have featured six different Bulldogs with the game-winner (Suddick – four times, Guhl - twice, Lehtinen, Harvey, Timmer, and Kieran Geldenhuys). 
Suddick has missed three matches on the season. Butler is 9-2-1 in Suddick's 12 matches. In those eight wins, Suddick has scored four game-winners and assisted on the game-winner in four of the other five matches.
 
The win over Creighton was a rematch of the 2016 BIG EAST Tournament championship game that Butler won, 2-1, in Indianapolis. The BIG EAST title game win gave the Bulldogs an automatic berth in the 2016 NCAA Tournament, its first appearance since 2010. Butler has advanced to the NCAA Tournament on seven occasions (also 1995, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2009, and 2010). Five of the first six came by earning the automatic berth that came from winning the Midwestern Collegiate Conference/Horizon League Tournament.
 
Snape has gone deeper onto his bench this season after All-League player Timmer was lost for the season to a leg injury in the team's second match of the season (Aug. 28 at Louisville). Midfielder Marco Charalambous, a starter in 2016, was lost for the season due to a knee injury sustained over the summer. Starters Derek Sutton and Bennett Kim have also missed multiple matches due to injury, but both are currently back in the line-up.
 
Geldenhuys and Leonard are the only Bulldogs to start all 15 matches for the Bulldogs. Both Leonard and Geldenhuys have played all but five minutes this season. Moulden has played every minute other than being forced to sit out the IU match.
 
Entering the contest with Marquette, Snape has a record of 62-44-21. The Butler coaching staff, led by Snape, was named the NSCAA (now referred to as United Soccer Coaches) Great Lakes Region Staff of the Year for Division I institutions in 2016. This honor is a result of a vote by other coaches in the region.
 
The regular season finale is a home game against Xavier Nov. 1. The match will air on the BIG EAST Digital Network.