OSKALOOSA – The Iowa Wesleyan College men’s soccer team continued its season-long trend of close matches but again came out on the losing end in a 4-3 loss to William Penn University Tuesday night at the Lacey Sports Complex.
Nick Gorrie scored the winning goal in the 80th minute, breaking a 3-3 tie and giving the Statesmen the win in the Midwest Collegiate Conference matchup. Penn (4-6-1 overall, 1-4 MCC) got its first conference win, while the Tigers lost their fourth straight match and dropped to 2-8-1, 0-3-1 in the MCC.
Wesleyan played its ninth game of the season decided by one goal or less, and is now 2-6-1 in those games. Making this loss tougher was that the Tigers twice fought back to tie the match, including coming back from a 3-1 deficit in the second half to tie, only to see Penn come back with an answer soon after. IWC also got a big night scoring from Albert Michael (Fr.-St. Johns, Antigua), who nearly carried the Tigers to a win himself with a hat trick.
IWC gave the Statesmen their first goal of the match just 5:20 in, when Reinaldo Hall (Jr.-Trincity, Trinidad & Tobago) tried to clear a cross with little traffic around him, only for the ball to deflect off his head and straight into the Tigers’ goal. Wesleyan answered quickly, though, as Michael scored unassisted from the right side of the box at the 13:57 mark to tie the score.
William Penn would break out to a 3-1 lead later in the half, though, as Tim Eyer scored in the 27th minute and Gorrie then scored his first of the night in the 35th minute. The score would stay that way until the second half, when Michael scored his second goal at the 60:12 mark, assisted by Chris Matthews (So.-Toronto, Ontario, Canada).
Michael had a penalty kick attempt to tie the score but missed, but the freshman got even later when he scored once again when he scored with another assist from Matthews in the 75th minute. Gorrie answered just five minutes later, though, beating goalkeeper Idris Labaran (Fr.-Matteson, Ill.) for what would prove to be the winning goal.
Labaran made four saves in goal, while WPU goalkeeper Tadeo Cavazos made eight saves. Penn outshot Wesleyan 18-14 but IWC had an 11-8 edge in shots on goal. The Tigers were playing without a pair of starters, as goalkeeper Troy Osborne (Jr.-Sydney, Australia) and forward Levor Henry (Sr.-St. Johns, Antigua) both sat out after receiving red cards on Saturday against Waldorf.
IWC will next face Mount Mercy University on Sunday in another MCC match. The men’s match will take place at 4 p.m., immediately following the match between the Tiger and Mustang women’s teams.
Box score WPU 4 IWC 3
