Soccer Men Go 1-1 in Trip to Mississippi

On a five-game winning streak heading into the weekend, the USAO men’s soccer team extended it to six on Friday, but fell on Saturday in a weekend trip to Mississippi. On Friday, the Drovers defeated William Carey College 1-0, but lost to Belhaven College 5-2 on Saturday.

With the weekend split, USAO’s record moves to 7-3-1 overall, as the conference season begins this week. The Drovers’ first conference match is a doubleheader scheduled for Thursday at Oklahoma Baptist. The women’s match kicks off at 1 p.m., followed by the men around 3 p.m. USAO’s next home match is Oct. 16 against John Brown, Ark.

In Saturday’s match against Belhaven, USAO jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead with a goal by senior Nene Coulibally and an assist from sophomore Adam Day. But, Belhaven came back with two straight goals for a 2-1 halftime lead.

Junior Augustine Osese tied the game at 2-2 with a goal in the 65^th minute on an assist by senior Marcus Williams. Belhaven, then, added three more goals in a 10-minute span for the 5-2 decision.

Junior goalkeeper collected eight saves but allowed five goals in just his third loss of the season. Belhaven’s Matt Paschal corralled six saves, while surrendering two goals.

On Friday, sophomore Tom Hubbard scored the only goal of the game in the 24^th minute for a 1-0 win over William Carey.

Ballmann stopped all six shots he faced in his fifth shutout of the season. He is two short of tying his own school record of seven shutouts in a season, and has 13 in his career at USAO. William Carey’s Florent Schrice finished with two saves and allowed the game’s only goal.

Williams, Day and senior Jason Wilson each received yellow cards in the physical game, in which officials whistled both teams for 34 fouls.