VILLANOVA, Pa. – With only one game on tap for the first week of October, the Villanova Wildcats have enjoyed a respite of sorts at the halfway point of the regular season.

That interlude concludes Friday afternoon, when the Wildcats resume BIG EAST action with their first home conference match against Xavier (4-4-1 overall, 0-2-0 BIG EAST). This contest kicks off at 3 p.m. As part of the day, Villanova will recognize the efforts of NORD (National Organization for Rare Disorders).

The match will be live streamed via the Nova Nation All-Access Pass at villanova.com.

"This break has given us a little more time to work on what we want to do," noted head coach Tom Carlin, who enters Friday's match with 98 victories as Villanova head coach. "Those are reps you normally aren't able to get on a daily basis when you're playing games every couple of days.

"It's been a chance to regroup, renew and get ourselves ready for Xavier."

Villanova is 5-3-1 overall, 0-1-1 BIG EAST. It dropped a 1-0 decision at Creighton Saturday night in its most recent action and now returns to Higgins Soccer Complex, where it is 4-0 thus far in 2019 and has yet to concede a goal.

The Musketeers, meanwhile, fell at home in Cincinnati on Tuesday night, 1-0 to Western Michigan. Xavier scored a major victory in the season's opening week over then No. 2/3 Akron but has yet to record its first point in conference play. It fell at St. John's (3-1) and in Cincinnati vs. Marquette (2-1) in its first outings of the league campaign.

"This is a great team," stated Carlin. "Soccer's a crazy game sometimes. You watch their games on tape and they were the better team in some of the games they lost. We've said it before this season. That's just how it goes sometimes. They're hungry. We're hungry and it's certainly going to be a battle."

The Wildcats begin the second half of their season Friday. Seven of the nine games they have played thus far have ended with a 1-0 score. The only exceptions were a 5-0 win over Delaware on Aug. 30 and a 0-0 draw at DePaul on Sept. 20. Like many of their counterparts in college soccer, the Wildcats are hoping to unlock the riddle of scoring production.

That element becomes even more challenging in October, as conference play kicks into high gear. Thanks to the availability of high-quality scouting video, opponents are well versed in the preferred tendencies of every roster they encounter.

"Everyone knows each other so well with the way we all scout now," Carlin stated. "It just makes it more difficult to find those openings. Everything is so planned and rehearsed, it just takes a while to break through."

To Carlin's mind, the best attacks are cohesive ones.

"For us, it's not a matter of one position group," he said. "We just have to put ourselves in good situations to score. There's a lot of stuff when we go from the middle third to the final third that we have to do right. When we don't, it forces us to play defense and when you do that, the goal scoring opportunities become more limited.

"It's not so much about what we're doing in the final third as it is the things we need to do to get there."

Carlin remains upbeat.

"Our guys have competed and made strides," he stated. "We're looking forward to the chance to be on our home field to face an outstanding Big East team."

This is the first of two in a row at home for the 'Cats. Villanova will be back at the Higgins Soccer Complex on Tuesday to host James Madison in non-league clash that gets underway at 4 p.m.