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HOUSTON – On Sunday afternoon at Strake Jesuit's Clay Stadium, the HBU men's soccer team fell by a score of 5-2 to No. 19 Seattle in a Western Athletic Conference game.
Senior
Josue Palomino had a shot on target just past the one-minute mark that was stopped by Seattle (8-3-0, 2-1-0 WAC) goalkeeper Josh Adachi. HBU (3-3-3, 1-1-1 WAC) got on the board when
Thomas Menke dribbled past a pair of defenders and was fouled in the box, setting up Palomino for a penalty kick during the 16
th minute. Palomino converted the PK for his first goal of the season. Seattle responded a couple of minutes later when Cody Gibson scored off a cross that went off HBU keeper
Jorge Cabrera's hands and rolled into the net in the 18
th minute.
At the 22:07 mark, The Redhawks got a PK opportunity of their own but Cabrera laid out to his left and made the save for HBU. In the 26
th minute, a corner kick found the head of Nathan Aune whose shot was on target but was stopped, however, the rebound came right back to him and he was able to knock it in for the goal and send HBU into the half trailing 2-1.
The Huskies bounced back in the 52
nd minute with
Gianluca Natera dropping a nice pass to
Devon Grant who then crossed the ball to the back post where
Thomas Menke was making a run and banged home the goal, evening the game at 2-2. The match remained knotted until the 68
th minute when Seattle's Julian Avila-Good and Declan McGlynn scored back-to-back within a 37-second stretch. McGlynn added the fifth goal for the Redhawks in the 87
th minute.
Seattle held a 15-to-9 advantage in shots and attempted seven corner kicks to the Huskies' three. Cabrera made four saves in goal for HBU while the goal from Menke was his second in as many games. Natera's assist was his fifth of the season and he is tied for the conference-lead in that category.
"I thought we played better than the score shows," said head coach
Ryan Pratt. "To be tied 2-2 65 minutes into the game and trying to find a way to get a result we just let ourselves get open a little too much at the end. They were clinical in front of goal and they made us pay. I'm proud of our guys and we battled and how we fought. We've just got to recover and get ready for our first conference road trip coming up."
After being at home the last two weekends, HBU hits the road for a pair of WAC matches next weekend beginning at Incarnate Word on Friday, Oct. 5, and then continuing on to Edinburg, Texas to take on UT Rio Grande Valley Sunday, Oct. 7.