Ottawa, KAN - The Ottawa men's soccer team will open up their season against a ranked opponent as they host (16) William Penn at AdventHealth Field.

• The Braves are coming off a historic season, which saw them finish with a 15-5-1 record, a KCAC regular season runner-up, a KCAC Tournament runner-up, and the program's first NAIA tournament appearance since 1971. In the tournament, they fell in the first round to eventual quarterfinalists Indiana Tech by a score of 0-1.
• From the 2023 squad, Ottawa returns nine starters, including NAIA Third-Team All-American and KCAC First-Team forward Bence Molnar, KCAC First-Team midfielder Alonso Basauri, KCAC First-Team midfielder Jack Hatswell, KCAC Second-Team forward Slobodan Novicevic, and KCAC Honorable Mention defender Toby Witham.
• In all, the Braves return 17 from last season, and have supplemented the roster with nine newcomers.
• On the other side of this matchup is 16th ranked William Penn, who Ottawa is attempting to beat for the first time. The Statesmen have followed up last year's 12-5-4 record and NAIA Final Site appearance with a 6-0 win over Morningside. In that game, six different Statesmen scored, and Kevin Onelius and Viktor Masek combined for the clean sheet.
• This will be the fourth meeting between the two teams, and William Penn has won all three. The last meeting was in 2013, which the Statesmen won 3-1.