It was a tough loss for the Bruins soccer team on Saturday night as they couldn't slow the high-powered Bryan College Lions in a 3-0 loss at Alumni Stadium. "We have got to play with passion for 90 minutes," Head Coach Jesse McCormick said. "We needed to be smarter with the ball and we had a lot of unneeded turnovers. We had some good things but overall needed more consistency."  

The Bruins played one of the most formidable teams that they have faced in the past couple years. Bryan College is a top NAIA program and their play showed on the pitch. The Bruins knew they would be in for a tough match, but the difficulty was added as several key players on the team such as Garrett Martin and Bryce Colon were sidelined with injuries. Defender Josh Harm played only limited minutes and wasn't up to his normal defensive standard. 

In the opening minutes, the two teams went back and forth trading possession. The Bruins played well as they kept their form and worked the ball around the pitch. Offensively, the team struggled to generate looks on frame as the Lions defense limited Stephen Grider in the attacking third. The Lions struck first in the 19th minute of play as Charlie Clarke rifled a shot past Andrew Kester to make it 1-0. The Lions continued to press game and played with a high defensive line which limited the Bruins in the midfield and setup quick counter attacks. Still, the Bruins defense stayed with the Lions as the first half ended 1-0.

As the second half began, the Bruins came out energized and looking for the equalizer. The team managed to create more offensive opportunities than the first half, but still the shots weren't finding the back of the net. The Lions were continuing to press and added to their lead as Dylan Watson scored from point blank range to give the Lions a 2-0 advantage. Just three minutes later, the Lions scored again to make it 3-0. 

With the game coming to a close, the Bruins tried to gain offensive opportunities on frame. They nearly found the scoreboard as Stephen Grider had a left footed free kick that struck the post before being cleared out by the Lions defense. Just minutes later, Marvell Lareche had a shot that hit the top corner of the crossbar and bounced out of play. At this point in the match, the Bruins had given Alumni Stadium hope as the fans had come alive. But the Lions defense continued to turn aside offensive opportunities as they closed out the clean sheet with a 3-0 win. 

"Bryan is a highly ranked program and a quality opponent," Coach McCormick said. "We knew we needed to be organized defensively in tracking players coming out of the midfield and being consistent on the offensive side as well. We lost too many 50-50 balls tonight and that is just unacceptable." 

Bruins keeper Andrew Kester served up an incredible performance tallying 20 saves and keeping shots out of the net all night long. He recorded several brilliant saves on direct shots as well as a couple incredible one-on-one saves. The Lions outshot the Bruins 34-9 throughout the game as well as 8 more corner kick opportunities.

With the loss, the Bruins have dropped three straight as they fall to 1-7 on the season. The team will have some rest and recovery over the weekend with the hope that some of their injured players would be able to return soon. Next up, the Bruins will travel to play Point University in Georgia on Tuesday night.