Northwestern tops Concordia with late goal
ORANGE CITY, Iowa – The Concordia men’s soccer team was topped by (RV) Northwestern College on Saturday, Sept. 26, despite 12 Bulldog shots on goal. The goal from the Red Raiders came late in the contest, giving CUNE limited time to find the equalizing goal.
“It was a tough, back and forth game,” said head coach Jason Weides. “I don’t think either team played great in terms of style of the game. It was a gritty game. I thought both teams played really hard, it was a physical game. It had the feel of a conference playoff game, both teams were really battling. I was really proud of the guys’ effort. I thought they had the right focus and attitude entering this game all week, I thought we prepared well. Besides style of play, we did the things that are necessary to win, we just didn’t get the win.”
The lone goal of the tilt came from Northwestern’s Hartrick Tarr. The goal came at the 8:30 minute mark with the assist going to Tyler Limmer.
The Red Raiders outshot the Bulldogs, 15-13. Shots on goal were in the ‘Dogs favor, 12-8. Freshman Tyler Jensen led squad in shots with five, all on goal, in just 29 minutes of play. Five other Bulldogs took at least one shot.
Weides said, “In particular from this match we got into a bit of a track meet, when we went forward in the attack, there was never a sense of going back. It was up and down and had a lot of transition. We need to do a better job moving forward of holding the ball a bit better, switching the point of attack, going backward to go forward. We just had our foot on the pedal and went forward the whole time and we’re a team that has the ability to possess a little bit better than we did tonight. Against the good teams in our conference we’ve got to alleviate pressure by holding the ball a little bit better.”
Filling the net for the Bulldogs was Mark Horsburgh. The keeper played all 90 minutes and tallied five saves. Matt Scott was the goalie on the other end of the pitch, recording seven saves.
The Concordia Bulldogs fall to 5-3 (0-1 GPAC) on the season while the Northwestern Red Raiders improve to 6-3 (1-0 GPAC).
“We’ll use this as motivation moving forward. There was nothing to hang their head about. It’s not that we under preformed or played poorly, Northwestern didn’t have many good chances and they took advantage of a chance they had late in the game,” Weides noted.
The men’s soccer team will be back in action on Tuesday, Sept. 29 as they travel to Hastings College. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.