The Men’s Club Soccer team is aiming to raise $4,000 to attend a national tournament in Phoenix Nov. 19-21, club President and Captain Oliver Guerra said.

St. Edward’s University was originally left out of the tournament. A total of 24 teams, from across the country, including large schools like Texas Tech University and the University of Arkansas compete to win their respective division and regional tournament.

The team was not able to win, but a lottery system is created for the teams that did not win their region.

Even after this, however, the club team wasn’t selected. Then came word that Baylor University withdrew their winning bid, and St. Edward’s was first on the waiting list and jumped on the opportunity.

“I think this will be a great opportunity for our club to go and represent our school nationally at a competition that features some of the best collegiate club soccer,” Guerra said.

However, a trip to Arizona is not free, as teams must pay for travel and hotels.

The team also had to pay $1,200 to just enter in the tournament. However, the team is expecting to attend.

“We 100 percent fully expect to go to this tournament,” Guerra said. “We come into this tournament with a lot of speculation because we are by far one of the smallest teams …”

Freshman player Diego Saldana is excited for the club’s opportunity and thinks it will be a positive thing for St. Edward’s

“I think it’s a great experience for everyone on the team and great for the school’s reputation to be represented in a national tournament,” he said. “I can’t wait.”

Guerra says working hard is what is helping the club succeed.

“We will be really focusing on fitness this year, as this is one of our points we really tried to work on this semester,” he said. “That ended up helping us out a lot.”

Next semester the team plans to hold open tryouts to help grow the team and hopefully go to more tournaments.