GOSHEN, Ind. — Lucas Bontreger tied the game with his third goal of the season in the 69th minute, but the Goshen College men's soccer team found itself on the wrong side of another one-goal decision Saturday night in a 2-1 loss to Taylor University at the John Ingold Athletic Complex.
Quinn Partain took a through ball from Paul McBride and slotted it past the Goshen goalkeeper with 13:05 remaining as the Trojans (2-6, 2-5 Crossroads League) picked up their second win of the season in the cross-divisional game.
Adhika Ezra picked up his first assist of the season for Goshen (0-4-1), which took 24 of the 33 shots and 9 of the 11 shots on goal. Taylor took four second-half corner kicks to close the margin in that statistic to 6-5, but Goshen still finished with the lead there too.
Owen Hardy scored less than six minutes into the game for the Trojans, so for most of the night, the Maple Leafs trailed in the important category while leading in most of the others.
Joaquin Hansen made 8 saves in net for Taylor. Goshen goalkeeper Matias da Fonseca was not called on to make a save since the Trojans scored on both of their shots on goal.
Bontreger led all players with 6 shots and Ezra had 4. Uriel Macias chipped in 3, the same figure with which Partain and McBride led Taylor.
Goshen nearly took the lead in the second minute when Stuart Aeschliman hit the left post with a shot, and Bontreger watched his first attempt sail high in the fifth minute. After the Trojans scored, Bontreger had a header saved in the seventh minute before Hansen kept Macias off the board in the ninth,
GC added three corners in a two-minute span late in the first half.
After the break, Goshen took the first 11 shots spanning 16 minutes before the Trojans got their first, a Partain header off a corner kick in the 67th minute.
The Leafs equalized less than two minutes later. Taylor nearly answered in the 70th minute, hitting the same post that Aeschliman struck in the opening minutes, before the visitors struck on a counterattack in the 77th.
Goshen mustered a pair of shots over the next five minutes and played the last 3:43 up a man after a Taylor defender was sent off in a byline kerfuffle. Despite two free kicks in that span, GC did not score.
The Maple Leafs continue their search for a conference win on Wednesday at Saint Francis at 7 p.m. in Bishop D'Arcy Stadium.
