BELLEVUE, Neb. – In a matchup between a pair of teams that qualified for the 2015 national tournament, host Bellevue University pulled away from the Concordia University men’s soccer team by going on the attack. The Bruins burned one of the nation’s stingiest defensive teams by a final score of 4-1 at Bellevue Soccer Complex on Wednesday afternoon.
The contest was stark contrast from the previous outing for head coach Jason Weides’ squad, which was coming off a 3-0 victory at Morningside three days earlier. The Bulldogs now sit at 5-3-2 overall.
“I think it was mostly our mentality,” Weides said of Wednesday’s loss. “We need to approach every game the same. I think we got in the mindset that we won a couple and we were feeling pretty good. Our last performance was really good. We want to see us take a step forward every game, and this game we did not take a step forward. You have to show up every day with a workmanlike attitude.”
Bellevue (5-6-2) recorded each of its four goals over the final 62 minutes of action. Early on, neither team got much going forward on the attack. There were only four combined shots over the first 20 minutes of play. Concordia nearly took a 1-0 lead when Carlos Ferrer tried to curl in a sharply angled shot that crossed into the box from left to right and struck the right post. The Bruins pounced with their first goal in the 29th minute by Daniel Coupland.
The opening of the second half was rough for the Bulldogs, who continually played with fire before Rob Smith ignited a goal-scoring splurge by the home team. Third and fourth goals were contributed by Andres Blanco and then Copeland once again, via penalty kick. With the game already out of reach, Carlos Acosta finally put Concordia on the board with a penalty kick goal in the 76th minute.
Led by Coupland, Bellevue nearly doubled up Concordia in shots (19-10). Bulldog opponents had averaged fewer than nine shots per game over the season’s first nine matches. Concordia had also not surrendered more than two goals in a single contest this season.
Bellevue carried a bit of a misleading record into Wednesday’s action. After reaching the national tournament each of the last three season, the Bruins have challenged themselves this year against five teams who were either ranked or receiving votes at the time of the game.
The Bulldogs return to conference play on Saturday when they welcome Mount Marty (3-7, 0-2 GPAC) to Seward as part of homecoming festivities on the Concordia campus. Kickoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. CT from Bulldog Stadium. The Lancers were in action Wednesday afternoon versus Northwestern.