CHICAGO, ILL. - A pair of second-half goals provided all the offense DePaul needed
in its 2-0 men's soccer victory over Drake on Tuesday (Sept. 21).
The loss dropped the Bulldogs' ledger to 3-4 on the year
while the Blue Demons improved to 3-3-1 overall.
"DePaul is an extremely challenging place to play with the
tightness of the field, the artificial surface, the rumbling of the L train and
it made it difficult for us today," Drake head coach Sean Holmes commented. "I was really pleased to make it to
halftime at 0-0 and is the case with soccer, I thought we turned the tide and
exerted pressure on DePaul. After
we gave up the goal we had to chase the game and the second goal was somewhat
inevitable."
Alex Mangan netted what proved to be the game-winning goal
in the 74th minute (73:57) driving a header into goal off a deflection off of
the crossbar to give DePaul a 1-0 advantage.
Antonio Aguilar tacked on an insurance tally at the 85:21
mark connecting on a shot from five yards out off a feed from Mangan to provide
the final 2-0 margin.
The Blue Demons outshot the Bulldogs, 10-7, led by three
shots from Aguilar. Seven
different Drake players accounted for the Bulldogs' seven shots.
Redshirt junior Jordan Kadlec (Hiawatha, Iowa/Cedar Rapids
Kennedy) pulled in a game-high six saves for Drake, while Joe Ferrari had three
stops for DePaul.
"Mid-week, non-conference road games are always extremely
difficult but give DePaul credit; they were able to possess and circulate the
ball for long sequences and we spent too much time chasing," Holmes said. "This fits into the category of our
Notre Dame and Indiana losses of too much youth on our part and upperclassmen
who aren't fully capable of sustaining the rigors of leadership. I think we'll be much better suited Saturday
night at Saint Louis."
The Bulldogs return to action on Saturday (Sept. 25) with a
7:30 p.m. tilt at Saint Louis. The
game will be the TopDrawerSoccer.com game of the week with the showdown being
streamed lived at www.topdrawersoccer.com/live.
