This Week in Rattlers Soccer
Saturday, Sept. 5 • Texas A&M-San Antonio (2-0) at St. Mary's (0-2) • 7 p.m.
Week Two: The St. Mary's Men's Soccer team remains at home, hosting Texas A&M-San Antonio on Saturday at 7 p.m. as part of Neighborhood Night. Several area club teams will be in attendance and select StMU players will be available after the game for autographs.
A Look Back: St. Mary's dropped both games to open the season, falling 1-0 to Colorado State Pueblo and 3-0 to No. 18 UCCS on Saturday. The Rattlers stared the season 0-2 for the first time in Head Coach Johnny Clifford's career, and the first time since 2003.
History with TAMUSA: The Rattlers are 1-0 all-time in regular season games against Texas A&M San Antonio, winning 5-0 in 2022. The teams have met several other times in exhibition games, and also compete against each other in the spring.
Different Look: In the season opener against Colorado State Pueblo, the Rattlers had five new players to the roster make their first start in the Gold & Blue. Filipe Bastos, Lewis Boney, Lucas Cobo, Kai Louviere, and Nichita Misac all had their first career starts for the Rattlers on Thursday. On the flip side, senior Ricky Alvarez has the longest active streak with 19 consecutive starts - every game he's been at StMU.
Shot Distribution: In the first two games, St. Mary's took 18 shots by 11 different players. Sophomore Dyllan Mendoza leads the club with three shots, and he is one of six with a shot on goal.
Season No. 62: The 2026 season marks the 62nd year of Men's Soccer at St. Mary's. The Rattlers are 478-432-95 all-time in 61 seasons. The first win of the season for StMU will mark the 80th for Head Coach Johnny Clifford, who is 79-39-29 in his ninth year as head coach.
Keep Your Eye On: Sophomores Fabian Enriquez and Kai Louviere, and senior AJ Valdivia were all named Players to Watch by the Lone Star Conference. Enriquez is coming off his redshirt season in 2025, while Louviere was the top scorer at Texas A&M International a year ago and Valdivia played in 11 games with four shots on goal as a defender in 2025.
Preseason Poll: With 18 newcomers on the roster, the prognosticators in the Lone Star Conference were unsure of the new look Rattlers and voted the team eighth in the 11-team league preseason poll. Defending national champion Midwestern State was chosen to repeat as champions, receiving 30 of the 33 first-team votes and 351 points. Rival St. Edward's has been selected second with 293 points, while UT Dallas (2 first-place votes, 290 points), Lubbock Christian (1, 241) and UT Tyler (198) round out the top five. The Rattlers garnered 161 points, finishing behind DBU (187) and West Texas A&M (175), and ahead of Oklahoma Christian (133), Sul Ross State (75) and Texas A&M International (74).
What's Returning: The Rattlers return only six of last season's 33 points, with two each coming from Ryan Guillaume and Sebastian Poblete and one each from Matt Espinoza and Axel Villegas. Poblete became the first freshman to score a game-winning goal since 2022, kicking the winner last season against Oklahoma Christian.
Art Majors: The St. Mary's 2025 team tied the school's single season record for draws in a season with the 2022 and 2023 teams that went 12-2-6 and 8-5-6, respectively.Â
Playing Clean: St. Mary's finished the 2025 season ranking second in the nation and first in the Lone Star Conference in fewest fouls per game, committing only 8.18 per game. Saint Martin's was the least penalized team in the nation, getting whistled for only 7.11 fouls per night.
Roster Notes: The Rattlers will merge 12 returners with 18 newcomers to make up the 30-man roster for 2026. There are seven countries represented on the roster with 19 from the United States, two each from England, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland, and one from Scotland.
Season Openers: The Rattlers are now 14-10-3 in season openers at the NCAA level, with a 6-1-2 record under Head Coach Johnny Clifford after dropping the 1-0 opener to Colorado State Pueblo. StMU is also 3-1-1 in openers against the RMAC since Clifford took over, with all three victories coming against MSU Denver.
New Keeper: For the first time since 2014, the Rattlers begin a season with no goalkeeper on the roster with any returning minutes in goal for St. Mary's. Fabian Enriquez redshirted the 2025 season at St. Mary's, while the team signed a pair of freshmen in Nichita Misac and Armando Quiroga during the offseason. Misac started in goal the first two games, making eight saves, while Enriquez finished out game two, making one save in almost 14 minutes.
