Men’s soccer shuts out Dordt, 2-0

Junior Michael Wyvill evades an opponent (photo from 2024 season).

Photo credit: Josiah Seabaugh

By Ransom Watts

The Concordia men’s soccer team climbed its way up to an even winning percentage on the season with an important 2-0 shutout victory against the Dordt Defenders at home on Oct. 25.

Straight out of the gates, the Bulldogs brought the offensive pressure to the Defenders by producing four shots within the first 10 minutes of play. Concordia was able to keep the ball at Dordt’s end of the field and tie up the Defender’s defense for a majority of the first half.

Midway through the first half, the Defenders made a few substitutions and began to flip the script and managed to mostly keep the ball away from Concordia. Into the rest of the first half, Dordt went five straight shots to Concordia’s one, two of which were blocked by Concordia’s goalkeeper, senior Inigo Chavarria.

Other than a few corner kicks here and there, the Defenders’ offensive burst faded and was not able to produce anything in the way of a score change.

Into the second half, the score did not remain tied for long when junior Jasper Hofland of Concordia scored his fourth goal of the season off an assist from his teammate, freshman Karlo Rodriguez.

A following back and forth exchange of attacks towards the goal ensued between the two teams that resulted in two back-to-back saves for Chavarria and a shot on goal for freshman Oliver Balaz of Concordia.

Evidently, Balaz wasn’t quite satisfied with that because ten minutes later scored Concordia’s second and final goal of the game and his second goal of the season.

The rest of the game played out in a continual back-and-forth where both teams were able to break away to the goal on different occasions. One such instance nearly resulted in Hofland’s second goal of the game when he drove to the goal and kicked a well-placed shot that was blocked by Dordt’s goalkeeper.

After this weekend’s game, the Bulldogs evened their wins and losses and brought their record against teams in the Great Plains Athletic Conference to 6-3. The Bulldogs showed great promise in beating the Defenders this Saturday and look to bring the same success next weekend at home once more, where they play the Doane Tigers at 5:30 p.m.