The men's soccer program at Shawnee State will play a 16-game regular season slate in 2025 -- which will include eight contests at Shawnee Turf in Portsmouth -- as part of a schedule release put out by second-year head coach Stan Rodrigues Friday afternoon.

Shawnee State, which opens its season Aug. 21, will play two road contests over a three-day span to start the year when the Bears head to the Sunshine State to take on Ave Maria (Fla.) and Warner (Fla.), respectively. The contest against Ave Maria will commence at 4 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 21 while SSU's contest against Warner (Fla.) will take place at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 23.

Over the following two weeks, Shawnee State returns home to play a trio of nonconference opponents at Shawnee Turf, as the Bears will face Milligan (Tenn.) on Saturday, Aug. 30 at 6 p.m. followed by home contests against Campbellsville (Ky.) on Tuesday, Sept. 2 at 7 p.m. and Cincinnati-Clermont on Friday, Sept. 12 at 6 p.m. The Bears then face Marian (Ind.) in a 7 p.m. road match before heading into River States Conference play for the final nine games of the regular season.

Of the final nine regular season contests, five of those will be held at Shawnee Turf -- including a home matchup on Thursday, Oct. 2 against West Virginia Tech at 7:30 p.m. and four consecutive home conference matches against Kentucky Christian (Saturday, Oct. 11, 7:30 p.m.), Oakland City, Ind. (Thursday, Oct. 16, 7:30 p.m.), Brescia, Ky. (Oct. 18, 3:30 p.m.) and, lastly, Rio Grande (Thursday, Oct. 23, 7:30 p.m.)

Rodrigues finished his first season as head coach by leading Shawnee State to an 8-8-3 overall record -- including a 6-1-1 overall mark at Shawnee Turf in his first year at the helm. SSU went 4-2-2 in River States Conference play and advanced to a conference tournament semifinal for the first time in program history in 2024.

A total of six players were named as All-RSC honorees, including Nikos Pontikis, Guilherme Bitencourt, Cameron Thompson, Joao Coqueti Leo, Theo Cavaliero Trindade, and Eric Green. Five of those six players return -- while Green, the lone player to graduate from the squad out of the six, was just named as the River States Conference's Bill Melton Male Champion of Character Award Winner.

For more information on the Shawnee State men's soccer program, visit https://ssubears.com/sports/mens-soccer or https://www.instagram.com/ssumsoc/.