Pride suffer tough defeat to No. 11 Missouri Valley

DUBUQUE, Iowa - In the middle of a stretch of having to face three-straight ranked conference opponents, the Clarke University men's soccer team fell 8-0 to No. 11 Missouri Valley College at home on Burrows Field on Saturday afternoon.

The Vikings were able to start each half with two goals in fairly quick succession, first in the opening 11 minutes of the game as Kerim Akpinar and Sam Green notched tallies in the eighth and 11th minutes then in the second half it was Malik Hasanovic scoring back-to-back goals in the 53rd and 60th minutes to make it 4-0 and deflating the CU home crowd.

Not very long after that Yoshiki Igarashi would tap in a goal off of a nice pass from Akpinar to make it 5-0 less than a minute later before a Pride own goal made it 6-0 in the 67th minute then Hasanovic assisted on the seventh goal of the game, feeding Luka Perendija for a goal as the final nail in the coffin was a Shiko Kiyomiya goal with about 45 seconds remaining in the game to extend the game to that 8-0 final.

Other than shots on goal, the stats were fairly even throughout the game as MVC outshot the Pride only by three at 18-15 and Clarke took two more corner kicks at 6-4.

Clarke men's soccer will have a non-conference matchup for their next game on Tuesday, Sept. 24 when they host Missouri Baptist University at 4:00 p.m. CT on Burrows Field before No. 10 MidAmerica Nazarene University comes to Dubuque for Homecoming weekend on Friday, Sept. 27 for a 5:30 p.m. CT scheduled start time.