CHICAGO – The DePaul Demons defeated the Drake University men's soccer team, 3-1, on Friday afternoon at Wish Field.
DePaul (2-3-0) used a pair of first-half goals and one late in the second half to build its lead before junior
Ryan Merideth (East Moline, Ill.) scored his first career goal and the first this season in the 83
rd minute (83:06) for Drake (0-4-0). Freshman
Alex Andersen (Iowa City, Iowa) tallied his first career assist on the goal.
"This wraps up a tough run of games on the road," said Drake head coach
Gareth Smith. "We had some good periods in the game today and generated more goal-scoring opportunities, but being good for moments won't win us games. We need our younger guys to take more responsibility in the key moments and be tougher mentality and physically when it comes to competing. It doesn't matter if you have ability, if you don't win your 1v1 battles on the field you can't win games. We need to toughen up and be braver when we play good teams on the road."
Merideth ended the Bulldogs' scoring drought with the help of
Paul Ciszewski (Germantown, Wis.) who made a great switch of the play to Andersen on the wing. Andersen delivered a perfect bending cross to Merideth who scored with a well-placed one-time finish.
After playing its first four road matches on the road, Drake will host Western Michigan on Sunday at 3 p.m. in its home opener. Sunday's match will be broadcast on
The Valley on ESPN3.
