Men’s Soccer fall to Belmont University in Homecoming game

The Cougars played their most recent Missouri Valley Conference home game against the Belmont Bruins on Sept. 24, which ended in a 1-0 loss.

This would mark the second time the Cougars have faced Belmont in a Homecoming game since 2008.

In 2018, the Cougars beat out the Bruins in a shutout match with a final score of 2-0.

Head Coach Cale Wassermann said he thinks the team benefits from creating competition and training during practice.

“There’s two guys tonight that made their debut; Owen Hardy and Wes Gibson both competed well in training and did well with their opportunities. Keeping things competitive will certainly make for people to not be complacent with their response and give them a little more of a killer instinct,” Wassermann said.

Before the Homecoming game, Gibson had appeared in a non-conference game against Southern Indiana and Hardy appeared in last night’s game against Memphis.

The Bruins secured five total shots, three of which were on goal, while the Cougars attempted seven goal shots in which one was blocked by the opposing goalkeeper.

The game’s only goal, scored by the Bruins, was secured during the first period at 26:34.

“I think just as you get closer those last fifteen-twenty minutes in games and there’s a difference of score line, one team’s going to be a little more conservative and physical and counter, and the other team’s going to be forward. That creates for some exciting moments for the crowd but certainly it creates last-ditch tackles for both teams,” Wassermann said.

Six fouls were called against the Bruins while nine were called against SIUE, with a red card handed to the Cougars’ junior defender Sam Layton from Brisbane, Australia.

“It certainly got a little physical, but I thought Sam was sent off; he’s a clean player and I thought he made a big tackle and he was a half-step late. I thought it could’ve gone either way but that’s life, and we had to play the last seven-eight minute without a man and even with that I thought we were pushing toward the end,” Wassermann said.

Wassermann said the team’s objective for the remainder of the season is to focus on bouncing back and recovering from the game.

“I think having the mid-week game will give us a turnaround to get this out of our system, it’s a non-conference game so we’ll have to be ready for it, but again our conference record is not really something we’re going to be focused on Tuesday or Wednesday, we’re going to be focused on just playing Memphis and improving from this game,” Wassermann said.

The Cougars play their next game against the Drake University Bulldogs at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 1.