The Webster University men’s soccer team carried a 2-0 lead late into a road game on Saturday, Sept. 15 against the North Central College (Ill.) Cardinals. Goals by junior forward Korey Gauvain and senior forward Clint Carder put the Gorloks in control. Then, the Gorloks’ game started to fall apart.
North Central scored its first goal with 16 minutes left to cut the deficit in half.
Four minutes later, North Central tied the game. Then, with less than five minutes left, the Cardinals took the lead for good.
The game was particularly physical. In all, 54 fouls were called, 30 of which were on Webster, including a red card on sophomore midfielder Mike Wells.
“Some of the fouls shouldn’t have been called,” Carder said. “But it got chippy because some of us got lazy and had to pick it up for others. We made some late hits, (but) there were a lot of different things that could have been prevented.”
Carder said despite the loss, the team looks to learn from the game and use it to prevent another similar situation from happening again.
Junior midfielder Carlos Espinosa said the referee lost control of the game. But the biggest problem was the Gorloks’ inability to adjust to the calls made.
“I felt they were really chippy and taking cheap shots even after the play or when the ref wasn’t looking,” Espinosa said. “We were really upset towards the end. They scored the third goal and the guy celebrated by telling us to shut up with the finger. That was pretty frustrating.”
Following the loss, the Gorloks beat Manchester College (Ind.) 3-2. Carder put the Gorloks up 1-0 in the 38th minute with his team-leading fourth goal of the season. After the Spartans tied it up going into the half, Espinosa netted his first and second goals of the year, giving the Gorloks the win.
“It was a great feeling. Everything was going right our way, we were playing really well, but we weren’t putting goals away,” Espinosa said. “In soccer, you have to put goals away or else you’re going to get punished. So it was great to be able to score two and put the team up 3-1. It was nice to play well and get the first two goals of the season and hopefully there’s more to come.”
With the win the Gorloks improved to 3-2 on the season. They play William Woods University Thursday on Sept. 20 and Wheaton College (Ill.) on Saturday Sept. 22. Both games are at St. Louis Soccer Park and start at 7 p.m.
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