NIU men’s soccer (1-5, 0-1 MVC) came up short of earning its first conference win, losing to the Bowling Green State University Falcons (5-1, 1-0 MVC) by a score of 2-1.
NIU men’s soccer head coach Ryan Swan reflected on the loss.
“I’m gutted about the result,” Swan said. “I thought we showed so many improvements to our play, our attitude on the field and just our commitment to doing the hard work. To lose it so late after having a couple of really fantastic opportunities to win the game ourselves. I’m gutted for the guys who I thought put in a really great shift today.”
Bowling Green found the back of the net early when sophomore forward Bennett Painter sent the ball past NIU sophomore goalkeeper Atahan Arslan to put the Falcons up 1-0.
The Falcons created 12 shots in the first half, 4 of which were on goal. NIU’s lone shot opportunity in the first 45 minutes came from senior forward Kevin Kelly in the 14th minute.
In the 50th minute, on only the second shot and the first Huskie corner of the match, sophomore defender Luka Vasic found his first goal for NIU off a corner kick assist from junior midfielder Jose Gomez.
The score remained locked at 1-1 for a majority of the second half, with senior forward Zachariah Thomas and junior forward Taylor Davis creating good opportunities to put the Huskies ahead.
Just before the end of the match, in the 87th minute, Painter found the lower right corner of the goal to put Bowling Green ahead.
“I thought Atahan (Arslan) dealt with it very well,” Swan said. “He came in and commanded his box really well. I thought we were better defensively. We knew there’d be a lot of balls in the air, and I thought our back line and midfielders were really good at dealing with that. I thought Zach (Zachariah Thomas) and Sam (Davis) did a really good job of getting into dangerous positions. I thought Kevin Kelly was holding the ball well.”
NIU ended the match being outshot 20-10, with the only shot on target being the goal from Vasic. Arslan notched 5 saves over 90 minutes, while the Huskies didn’t force Falcon fifth year goalkeeper Brendan Graves to record any saves.
“I think there’s a lot of really positive things to take from the game,” Swan said. “I think the attitude from the guys was great. We did create some very good opportunities, which I think have been lacking in some of our more recent games. We’ve just got to make sure that we don’t take this one too hard, which is difficult to address right now. We’ve got to make sure that we recognize that we are a good team and we’re very close to making this breakthrough. We’ve got to come out with that right mentality.”
NIU men’s soccer takes the field at home at 2 p.m Monday when they play Mercyhurst University at the NIU Soccer and Track & Field Complex in Dekalb. NIU All Access will have a live stream, and SIDEARM Sports will be updating live stats.
