William Penn second half scoring spree leads to Pride loss in Heart Tournament Semifinals

OSKALOOSA, Iowa - Advancing the deepest they ever have in the postseason, the Clarke University men's soccer team suffered a 3-0 loss to William Penn University in the Heart of America Athletic Conference Tournament Semifinals on the road on Saturday night.

In the scoreless first half, the Pride seemingly controlled play on their way to outshooting WPU 10-4 in the first 45 mintues that included an eye-popping eight corner kicks in the first half alone but were unable to cash in on those early opportunities that also led to four saves from Statesmen goalie Sean Bohan.

That first half advantage would carry over into the second half as the 10-4 shooting advantage would grow to 13-4 while adding two more corner kicks to the 8-2 halftime advantage but the first foul of the half would lead to a yellow card handed out to CU's Carles Aparisi just a minute before Miguel Menendez of William Penn would score a sliding goal past Philipp Kohle on assists from Albert Feixas and Leighton Jameson to make it 1-0 Statesmen.

Menendez's goal would open up the WPU offense as they would add on to that lead under two minutes later as Jaime Rozalen would score in the 56th minute on a Hugo Cornish assist then the 61st minute would see Luigi Mongan score off of a Connor O'Reilly assist and in the span of 7:18 of game time, the 0-0 game would be 3-0 in favor of the home team.

Of their 18 shots, the returning Luke Persenico, who missed the Heart Quarterfinal win over Benedictine due to injury, and Alejandro Valverde would share the team-lead with four shots apiece with Persenico putting two on net and Valverde taking one shot on goal.

Bohan and Kohle had near polar opposite games as Bohan finished the shutout win by making saves on all six shots on goal he faced while the only three shots on goal taken by the Statesmen went into the back of the net.

Pride men's soccer will now wait until the NAIA Selection Show in hopes of capturing an At-Large bid to the NAIA National Tournament with their 11-5-1 overall record and their third place finish in the Heart regular season.

The NAIA Selection Show is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. CT on Saturday, Nov. 16 following the completion of all conference tournaments in the NAIA with the First Round of the NAIA Tournament scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 21 as First and Second Rounds being at 16 host sites.