The Men's Soccer team lost in their season opener by a score of 1-0 on Saturday. They traveled to
Omaha, Nebraska to take on the #21 ranked Bellevue Bruins. It was a good season-opening game for both teams. MNU is coming off of their worst season in school history and BU is coming off of one of their best seasons as they made a run to the Round of 16 in the National Tournament.
MNU controlled the first 15 minutes of the game with good possession but did not create many changes in the attacking third. In the 18th minute MNU had a turnover in the defensive third and BU's Mark Heath-Preston made them pay with what turned out to be the only goal of the game. The rest of the half was controlled by BU as MNU failed to respond to the early goal and struggled to regain their composure.
The second half was a different story. MNU controlled the play as they pushed to get the equalizing goal. The Pioneers created numerous scoring opportunities but were unable to capitalize on any of them. "The guys did really well in the 2nd half," stated Coach Wardlaw. "We could have scored 2-3 goals but did not make use of our chances. Bellevue did a good job of staying organized and credit goes to them for making their one goal stand."
For the game, BU outshot MNU 10-6, with SOG being 6-2. Corner kicks were 6-4 in MNU's favor. BU's GK had 2 saves and MNU's Matt Gow and Bret Olendorff combined for 5 saves.
The Pioneers are 0-1. The next game is Saturday, September 4 vs. Cal State-San Marcos in Prescott, AZ.