The Golden Hurricane men’s soccer team bounced back from their loss to top ranked Creighton with a road victory against the Kangaroos of UMKC.
The game started out rough for Tulsa, as the Kangaroos jumped out to an early lead, getting on the scoreboard in ten minutes. After Tulsa goalkeeper Jake McGuire cleared the ball, Didrik Rinde settled the ball at his teammate Hamish Smylie’s feet, and Smylie put a powerful shot past McGuire into the lower left corner of the goal.
The Kangaroos second goal came on a break, when Pandeli Popgeorgiev got behind the defense and curved the ball around McGuire into the right side of the net. The goal gave UMKC a 2–0 lead.
Tulsa bounced back quickly, however. After Popgeorgiev’s goal, the Golden Hurricane pushed forward. Cameron Drackett took the ball down to the endline and crossed it into the box. Kangaroo goalkeeper Nathan Spores stopped the cross, but the ball ended up sitting right in front of the net, and Cole Poppen was able to get there in time to pop the ball over Spores to put Tulsa on the scoreboard.
In the second half, Tulsa was searching for an equalizer. As time was winding down, they continued to push forward, and broke through with less than ten minutes remaining. Cameron Drackett again put a cross in, and this time Juan Sanchez was there to drill the shot into the corner of the goal, leveling the score at two goals each.
At the end of regulation the score remained tied, so the teams headed into overtime. Tulsa wasted no time in getting up the field. Lesley Nchanji had space to cross into the center, and Juan Sanchez ran under the ball, heading it over Spores to give the Golden Hurricane the sudden death victory, with a score of 3–2.
After the game head coach Tom McIntosh said, “I thought we moved the ball pretty well tonight and we were much better going forward than we were on Saturday. It was a tough game after coming off the loss at Creighton and then going down two goals early, but the guys were never rattled and they just kept playing.”
On Saturday night the Golden Hurricane played their first game against an American Athletic Conference opponent when SMU travelled to Tulsa.
In the first half Tulsa held possession better than SMU, but weren’t able to put many attempts on target. SMU, though they had fewer chances, made the most of them. Seven minutes into the game, SMU counterattacked down the left side of the field, and crossed it into the center.
Brenden Lee was able to knock the ball down, and let it bounce once before firing across the goal into the lower lefthand corner to give the Mustangs a 1–0 lead.
That goal proved to be all SMU needed, and the teams battled back and forth for the remainder of the game, but no one was able to find the back of the net. Tulsa had fifteen shots, but only three of them were on target.
After the loss, the Golden Hurricane dropped to 4–4–1 on the season (0–1 in the American Athletic Conference). Their next game is on road Saturday night at 6 pm at Cincinnati.
