USAO men’s soccer team traveled to Oklahoma City to play Mid-America Christian University (MACU), ranked first in the nation, in the Sooner Athletic Conference (SAC) Championship Thursday, Nov. 9. The Drovers were hot coming in with a six-game win streak and they were looking to extend it to seven and bring home the championship trophy.
The first few minutes of play seemed to be dominated by MACU as they put up three shots on goal (SOG) and had their first corner kick. Finally, Sebastian Boldt, a freshman defender, put up USAO’s first shot, but it was blocked by the MACU goalie. Senior forward Justin Croke took USAO’s first corner kick, but the Drovers could not score off the opportunity. After almost 25 minutes had expired off the clock, USAO’s goalie Angel Diaz recorded his first block of the game. Croke took another corner kick at the 30-minute mark and Harry Yorke’s header went just wide of the goal. As the first halfway winding down, Diaz recorded another block. With less than a minute remaining in the first half, USAO fouled a MACU player inside the box, which awarded the player a penalty kick. The kick hit the back of the net and put MACU up 1-0 as the last few seconds ticked away.
In the first few minutes of the second half, Croke had another corner kick that went high over the goal. Diaz kept slowing MACU’s momentum with another save. Both teams recorded several more SOG as time kept ticking down. In the 78th minute, Callum Sheppard, a junior defender, scored for USAO to make the score 1-1. The celebration was short-lived as MACU managed to score just 21 seconds after the Drovers. MACU ended up scoring one more time in the final seconds of the game, putting their lead up 3-1 to end the SAC championship.
Throughout the game USAO was tagged with 17 fouls compared to MACU’s six. Each team had five corner kicks, and USAO recorded eight SOG compared to MACU’s 15. USAO also had three yellow cards to MACU’s one.
The end of the tournament marked the end of the Drover season for the year. USAO ended the season with an overall record of 9-8-4 and a conference record of 4-4-1.
Holden Pate is a second-year business administration major at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.
