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Photo Gallery (by Sandy King)
Charleston, Ill - Eastern Illinois men's soccer fights hard, but ends the day defeated 2-1 against Bradley. The Panthers are now 1-1 on the season while the Braves moved to 3-0-1.
On a sunny afternoon of soccer at Lakeside Field, Eastern Illinois and Bradley showed that both teams came to play as the game was full of physical battles from minute one. The first scoring opportunity did not come until the 20th minute, when goalkeeper
Chad Smith made his first save of the day. The Panthers fought back with a few crosses and shots that brought some danger to the Brave's defense, but not enough to take the lead. In the 30th minute, Bradley broke through EIU's defense with Caleb Ribeiro scoring the first goal of the match. Five minutes later, Francesco Pettinaroli found the goal that would give Bradley the 2-0 lead at halftime.
The second half started just as physical as the first half ended. In total, four EIU players received yellow cards while two yellow cards were shown to BU, which gave the match a total of six yellow cards. Apart from the physical battles, EIU tried to apply some pressure into the Brave's defense in search of its first goal. The Braves could hold EIU's offense up until the 87th minute, when sophomore
Adrian Lechuga found the back of the net with a beautiful shot from outside of the eighteen-yard box. He was assisted by
William Bruce.
EIU ended the match with 7 shots while Bradley had 13 shots. Goalkeeper
Chad Smith had a total of three saves in net for the Panthers.
Up next, EIU will prepare to host IUPUI on Tuesday, Sept. 5th. Kickoff scheduled for 4pm.
