DES MOINES, Iowa – Tarik Nicholls scored a golden goal for the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles Friday night in a 1-0 win over Drake University in the season opener for both teams at the Cownie Soccer Complex.
 
Oral Roberts (1-0) earned the win in the 91^st minute (91:39) when Nicholls headed in a long free kick by Christos Smirlis after a penalty on Drake (0-1).
 
"This is a difficult result to accept because we played exceptionally well this evening," said head coach Gareth Smith. "We dominated possession and created more than enough opportunities to win the game. From an attacking perspective we need to be more clinical in front of goal. When you create 10 very good chances and don't score you leave the door open for the opposition to steal a result and that's what happened. There are a lot of positive to take from the performance and it provides a good building block for us to prepare for a great test against Butler on the road on Monday."
 
Two of those near scoring chances came courtesy of redshirt senior Steven Enna (Overland Park, Kan.), who made his return after playing in just two matches in 2017 due to injury. Enna's first shot on goal was in the first few minutes of the match and later the second came in the 71^st minute. Both were saved by Oral Roberts' goalkeeper Miles Motakef.
 
Newcomer Cole Poppen (Ankeny, Iowa), who transferred from Tulsa, nearly won the game twice for the Bulldogs late in the second half. Poppen sent two shots on target, including one on a free kick with just seconds left that Motakef tallied a nice save on. Drake's offense finished with 10 shots, including five on goal.
 
Following Friday's home match, Drake travels to Indianapolis, Ind. to play No. 9 Butler. First kick is scheduled for 5 p.m. CST and the match will be shown on Facebook Live.