STATESBORO, Ga. - #15 Old Dominion men’s soccer suffered a 3-1 defeat at Georgia Southern on Sunday night in Statesboro at Bo Pitts Field.
“We were second to everything tonight and credit to Georgia Southern, they came to play and very much deserved the three points,” said ODU Head Coach Tennant McVea. “We have to put this behind us and work really hard this week in preparation for Kentucky.”
Georgia Southern (5-1-2, 1-0-1 SBC) scored two goals in the span of 13 minutes in the second half to take control of the game. GS killed the game off with an 85th minute goal from Broden Beorlegui to give the Eagles a 3-1 lead.
ODU (8-2, 0-2 SBC) and GS both finished the first half with two shots each. Miguel Menendez almost got the Monarchs on the board first in the fourth minute. He tried to play a pass into the box, but it was blocked by a GS defender, the ball fell back to Menendez who fired low with his left foot, but Nicolas Aristizabal was there to make the stop. GS was quick to push up the field after regaining possession and got its first shot on goal in the fifth minute from Beorlegui. Alexander Aguilar denied his attempt at scoring the opener and made a clean save while not conceding a corner kick.
Otu Bisong had ODU’s second shot of the night and final attempt of the half in the 15th minute, but it was off the mark. GS’ Charlie Votel had the final attempt of the half with 20 seconds left to play. He received the ball at the far post from a corner kick and had a one-on-one with Aguilar who made himself wide to make the point blank save as the game went into the halftime break scoreless.
GS outshot the Monarchs, 10-2 in the second half and scored the opening goal in the 56th minute. Mitch Picksley drove down the middle of the field and fired it from outside the box to the top right corner past Aguilar, 1-0. ODU almost conceded a second goal in the 65th minute but the goal was overturned by VAR for an offside player in the box. The Silver and Blue went down 2-0 four minutes later in the 69th minute, ODU’s Kosuke Yoshikawa was judged to have conceded a penalty kick and Beorlegui stepped up and scored to take a 2-0 lead.
ODU pushed up the pitch and fought hard to try and find its first goal of the night which ultimately was scored in the 81st minute by Jason Purks. Purks drove down the right wing and beat a GS defender to have a clear shot at goal, he fired low and hard and after a few deflections by the Eagles defenders the ball crossed the goal line to make the score 2-1.
Georgia Southern scored its third and final goal of the night in the 85th minute, a GS midfielder played a long header onto the path of Beorlegui darting down the middle of the field. He beat out two ODU defenders and slotted the one-on-one chance past Aguilar and into the net to make the score 3-1. The Monarchs had one final corner kick 18 seconds after the third goal went in but couldn’t generate a shot from the set piece attempt as the game ended, 3-1.
Jacopo Caprile, Ludovico Vicini, David Chapman, and Yoshikawa all logged 90 minutes of action for ODU on defense. Purks scored his fifth goal of the season and had two shots on target. Aguilar played a full 90 minutes in net and made three saves while his record moved to 8-2.
UP NEXT:
ODU faces Kentucky in Lexington on Friday, October 2 at 7 p.m. before heading back to Norfolk to host West Virginia on Friday, October 9 at 7 p.m.