On Wednesday evening, the Golden Hurricane men’s soccer team travelled to Dallas to face the No. 16 ranked team in the country, SMU.
The game started poorly for Tulsa, as they found themselves on the downside of a 1–0 scoreline after only 23 seconds when Stanton Garcia scored on a breakaway.
Idrissa Camara added a tally for the Mustangs half an hour later when he converted a free kick from 20 yards out, putting SMU ahead 2–0. Tulsa couldn’t get out of the first half with just that deficit, though. Ray Saari was shown a red card with two minutes remaining in the half, leaving the Golden Hurricane to play the remainder of the game with ten men.
A mere minute after halftime, Tulsa hit their low point of the game, as Camara netted his second goal of the game. The Golden Hurricane weren’t going down without a fight, though. In the 66th minute, Bradley Bourgeois got on the end of Cole Poppen’s cross to cut the deficit to 3–1.
Tulsa earned a free kick in the last minute of the game, and Geoffrey Dee converted to bring Tulsa within a goal of SMU, but they wouldn’t get any closer, falling 3–2. Considering they played the entire second half with a man down, the Golden Hurricane mounted an impressive comeback against the top team in the American Athletic Conference.
Tulsa hosted UConn on Saturday evening for their senior night game. Seniors Bourgeois and Dillon Alexander were honored before the game.
After a scoreless first half, Dee put the Golden Hurricane in the lead when he scored on a strike within a minute of the second half.
As time started to wind down, UConn played with more offensive aggression, trying to find an equalizing goal. In the final minute, they brought an attacking movement down the right wing. With a few seconds left, Abdou Thiam received the ball in the box, and put a shot on goal. As time expired, the ball passed Tulsa goalkeeper Jake McGuire and crossed the goal line.
The referees discussed whether or not the goal was scored in time to count, and decided to award the goal to UConn with 0.1 seconds remaining.
The goal sent the game into overtime with a tied score of 1–1. Each team was able to create chances to earn the win, but neither could beat the opposing goalkeeper and the game ended in a draw.
After the game, McIntosh talked about his team’s performance; “I thought our play defensively was quite good for much of the night. We created some better chances and it was obviously frustrating to give up a goal with one second left, but overall our performance was good.”
“We dominated much of the game, controlled large stretches of the game and really dictated the terms of the game. I thought we had a lot of guys come in off the bench and play really well.”
Tulsa now sits at 6–6–3 (2–3–2 AAC) on the season, and are scheduled to play their final game of the season in Memphis at 7 pm on Saturday evening. After that game, the team will look to defend their conference title at the American Athletic Conference tournament, which will take place in Tampa, Florida starting on Nov 7.
