Jake Bilyeu
Mast TV Sports Producer
bileujc@plu.edu
Men’s Soccer brought a ruckus on the road to two conference opponents this weekend. While they took a victory in their first match, the second contest left them feeling a little empty.
After a strong start to their conference play, Pacific Lutheran University’s Men’s Soccer team took a bus to rivals Whitman and Whitworth for a weekend of two crucial showdowns. The Lutes prepared all week for these two games, and it showed as they got off to a hot start against Whitman Saturday afternoon.
The Lutes found the back of Whitman’s net twice early on, as sophomores Bennett Bugbee and Eddie Na shifted through the defense for two goals within the span of eight minutes.
Although the Lutes generally outshoot their opponents by keeping the ball in their possession to force the offensive issue, Whitman did come back with strong return fire, creating quite the challenge for the Lute defense.
Thankfully, the team was able to withstand Whitman’s 15 shots, including 5 on goal, to come up with the win, 2-0.
This win brought Coach John Yorke to 149 career victories, tying him for the most of all time by any Lute Men’s Soccer coach. Coach Yorke wasn’t concerned with himself, though, he was just glad to see his team get the win.
“It was a good win today against a solid team,” Coach Yorke said. “Scoring two in the first half allowed us to conserve some legs in the second half and get a lot of players into the game.”
The team would need all of the fresh legs they could get for their next opponent, but even with that, the game did not go according to plan.
Just after Sunday’s match against Whitworth got underway, the opposing Pirates caught the Lutes off guard with a surprise attack and scored in the third minute to take the lead 1-0.
While the Lutes had plenty of leftover energy to attempt a comeback, they would ultimately never score, taking the 1-0 loss back home.
Once again, though, Coach Yorke wasn’t upset by the loss. “Whitworth is a very good team and we played very well against them,” Coach Yorke said. “I am really happy with our guys and their efforts this weekend.”
Catch more men’s soccer Oct. 3 and Oct. 4 taking on George Fox and Willamette at the home field.
