After a convincing 5-2 victory over Oral Roberts last Friday, the Saint Louis University men’s soccer team (1-1-1) will face its toughest test tomorrow at 7:00 p.m.—a road game against the No. 3 University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane (4-0).
The Billikens will enter Tulsa coming off their first win of the season. The victory over Oral Roberts was head coach Mike McGinty’s first at the helm of the program.
By the halftime whistle against Oral Roberts, SLU had already jumped out to a 3-0 lead, thanks to goals by senior Jimmy Holmes, sophomore Alex Sweetin and freshman Christian Briggs.
Within five minutes of the opening of the second half, Holmes gave the Billikens a 4-0 cushion—but SLU allowed two consecutive goals before freshman Adnan Gabeljic ended the scoring with a tally in the 90th minute.
“Any time you score five goals, you are happy,” McGinty said. “We created a number of chances. Oral Roberts is a good team, but we are disappointed that we gave up a couple. However, we are moving in the right direction, and we look forward to begin preparing for Tulsa.”
Briggs was also disappointed that the Billikens gave up consecutive goals to Oral Roberts.
“[Oral Roberts] was by no means a pushover,” Briggs said.
“It was good for us to get some goals on the board, but we’re disappointed to have conceded two goals—that wasn’t the plan. We need to settle down, not rush anything and make sure to not get lackadaisical. We just took the gas off a bit, which cost us the late goals.”
Briggs added that, defensively, SLU needs to work on switching who it marks more effectively.
“We’ve shown we can defend really well,” Briggs said. “Teams can’t break us down very easily—they usually score on set pieces and crosses. What we need to work on is crosses and switches, as well as always talking and communicating in the back.”
The importance of effective communication in SLU’s defense will be heightened in the game tomorrow against Tulsa.
The Golden Hurricane has outscored its opponents by a combined score of 12-2 so far this season, a prolific average of three goals per contest. It’s a strong team offensively or defensively.
But despite the fact that SLU will enter tomorrow’s game as the underdog, Briggs and his teammates are still confident that they can compete.
“I think we have improved in every game this season, in all aspects of the game,” Briggs said. “We showed, after conceding three goals (against New Mexico), that we needed to do some reflection. We have built on every performance since that game.”
And if SLU can continue that trend of improving in every game, the Tulsa game is coming at the right time.
“It’s going to be a tough game away from home,” Briggs said.
“They are 4-0. We have to go in with the mindset that [Tulsa] is riding high on confidence; but we know what we are capable of. We can beat any team.”
Additionally, junior forward Mike Roach, the leading scorer from last year’s squad, will not be traveling with the team. He hopes to see his first action against Drake.
