(Beloit, WI) - Marian University went on the road on Saturday afternoon and dropped a 6-1 non-conference game to Beloit College. The Buccaneers scored twice in the first period and four more in the second to secure the victory. Beloit out-shot the Sabres 29-8 in the contest en route to the victory.
The Buccaneers scored in 2nd and 14th minutes to grab the 2-0 lead at halftime.
In the second, Marian's Peter Xiong (Fond du Lac, WI) scored off an assist from Ali Makadji (Lansing, MI) in the 55th minute to make things close. From there, the game belonged to Beloit's Marc Robinson as he scored three of his four goals in the second period.
Marian is back in action again on Tuesday, as they will host MSOE at 7:00 PM.
Coach Peltonen's comments
"Definitely a disappointing game and result. We haven’t been beaten that bad all year and what is most disappointing is we’ve played better teams than Beloit. Not to take anything away from them, as they played great today. They beat us to the ball, constantly had us in transition, had numbers up in attack off the transition numerous times, were more athletic, and just played harder than us. We’ve had some close losses recently, but this wasn’t one of them today. Beloit scored early on a ball we played to them in the center of midfield and then they countered on us. Then they scored 10 minutes or so later when we cleared a ball to nobody particular in the center midfield, no one really challenged for the ball one it got there, and then they had us in transition again. We held off and subbed liberally in the first half, emptying the bench so everyone could get to play.”
In the second half we tried to focus on winning 50/50 balls and passing to our team more consistently and we started out well doing this. We score a nice goal after a few passes and a lay back from Ali Makadji to Peter Xiong who took a hard low shot and put it off the far post and into the goal. So it’s 2-1 and we’re back in the game. We’re motivated and guys are thinking we have a shot at this. They score 10 minutes later off a corner to make it 3-1. Then soon after that one of our defenders dribbles when he shouldn’t, gets stripped of the ball, and it’s a 1v1 with our keeper to make it 4-1. Their team smells blood and continued to attack and catch us even more in transition as we lose our discipline defensively. It was not a good day for the Sabre men’s soccer team.”.
“Until we learn to consistently position ourselves defensively by recovering early, play quickly to someone on our team, challenge and win our fair share of 50/50 balls, and put some shots on goal we’ll continue to struggle. Game balls went to Peter Xiong for the goal he scored and Ali Makadji for the assist.”