Conway – The Central Arkansas men's soccer team returned to Missouri Valley Conference action at the Bill Stephens Complex on Saturday night, hosting a ranked team for the first time since 2013, in the form of the twelfth-ranked Loyola Chicago Ramblers. The Bears were unable to pick up their first win over a ranked opponent since 2005, falling to the Ramblers by a score of 3-1.
LU (8-1-0, 3-0-0 MVC) got on the board early, as Alex Lasinski played a ball across the box to Elliot Collier, who slid it inside the near post to give the Ramblers a 1-0 lead in the seventh minute. Collier would add to his count in the 25
th minute, gathering a pass from Brody Kraussel and putting it away from seven yards out to push the LU lead to 2-0.
"The game went in a way that we weren't trying to let it go," said UCA head coach Ross Duncan. "They ended up getting more possession than we wanted them to get and that forced us to attack on the counter. I think that we shot ourselves in the foot early by not being disciplined defensively, and that caused us to have to chase the game, which isn't where we need to be."
The Ramblers would extend the lead to 3-0 in the 56
th minute, when Kraussel won a ball off the Central Arkansas (2-5-1, 0-2-0 MVC) and scored from 30 yards out.
The Bears would finally strike in the 74
th minute, as freshman
Krystian Sarzynski fired a rocket of a cross from the left side across the box, where it found the head of senior
Wes Carson, who redirected it to the back post and in to cut the Rambler lead to 3-1 with his fourth goal of the season.
"We came out of the half exactly how we wanted to," said Duncan. "Literally every chance that they had in the second half came off of a technical error by us, and it's frustrating to make those mistakes when you've got momentum, and we had momentum. If it's 2-1 instead of 3-1, then we're in the game, and they're nervous, and now we've got a shot. But we put ourselves in that position by going down 3-0 and we can't do that."
On the day, the Bears put a pair of shots on goal against the best defense in the MVC, getting on from Carson and one from junior
Pepe San Roman. In goal, freshman
Marc Olsen made a season-high seven saves.
Central Arkansas takes a break from Valley play on Tuesday, heading to Tulsa, Oklahoma to battle regional rival Oral Roberts. Kickoff between the Bears and Golden Eagles is set for 7:00 PM.
"We haven't spent a lot of time on ORU yet, because of the way the schedule has been," said Duncan. "But they're a team that we know well and that plays the same way that they've always played. We're more improved this year than at any point in the last four or five years, so I think it's going to be a competitive match."
