GEORGETOWN, Texas - The Berry College men's soccer team dropped their second game of the road trip to the No. 13 Southwestern University Pirates 2-1 Sunday afternoon despite a late rally.
The Vikings fall to 7-5-2 (3-2-1 SAA) this season, while the Pirates improve to 11-1-1 (3-0-1 SAA).
Going up against a nationally ranked opponent wasn't going to be easy, and the Vikings did their best to hang around in the early stages of the game. Through the first 20 minutes of the contest, Berry's defense did enough to keep Southwestern off the scoreboard thanks to two saves from Cooper Cherry.
That changed at 22:39, when Grey Richards found the back of the net thanks to an assist from Ross Anderson. The Pirates now had a 1-0 lead but they quickly doubled it just 45 seconds later. The Anderson and Richards connection struck again to put the Vikings in a sudden 2-0 hole.
That score held for the rest of the first half, but the Vikings displayed an impressive effort in the second half to get back in the game. In the 59th minute, precise passes from Sam Carlson and Leyton Brown allowed Luke Mullvain to score his first goal of the season to cut the deficit in half.
The remainder of regulation was chippy with six yellow cards being given to the two teams combined. Despite that, Berry continued to shut down the Pirates offense and looked to counter with a potential game-tying goal on the other end of the field.Â
Seamus Ladner had a shot on goal at 77:18 that was saved by Southwestern goalkeeper TJ Bass, and the team had two corner kicks in the final three minutes to set up a potential equalizer but came up empty on both.
The Pirates outshot the Vikings 13-7 for the game, including 5-2 in shots on goal. They also had eight corner kicks to Berry's three. Mullvain scored the Vikings lone goal, while Richards had both goals for the Pirates.
Berry is currently the two seed in the SAA with only two regular season games left on the schedule. Their next game is against Sewanee on Friday, October 30 with kickoff scheduled for 5 p.m.
