IW soccer drops pair at CAC Classic

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Iowa Wesleyan men’s and women’s soccer teams travel up to Cedar Rapids over the weekend to compete in the Continental Athletic Conference Classic.

For both Tiger squads it was a weekend with results they would have not preferred as each dropped both of their two games to Bellevue University and Viterbo University.

The Iowa Wesleyan women fell 2-0 in both contests, while the men dropped the pair, 5-0 and 5-1.

In the Tiger women’s opening matchup against Bellevue, the Tigers nearly opened the scoring off the foot of Baylee Alvarado in the 11th minute, but the shot went wide right.

Bellevue opened up the scoring in the 31st minute off a shot that was originally saved by Tiger goalkeeper Kylie Mulhern-Guillier, but the Bruins would score on the rebound to make it 1-0.

Two minutes later and the Tigers were hit with a red card when the ref ruled that Mulhern-Guillier put her hands on the ball outside the box. The card put the Tigers down a player the rest of the match.

Iowa Wesleyan was able to stay poised and headed into the locker room still down 1-0.

In the second half, Bella Goodson nearly tied up the game, but her shot was just high over the crossbar.

The Tigers would never be able to complete the comeback as the Bruins added their second goal in the 69th minute.

The Tigers were led offensively by Izela Avalos with two shots, one of which was on goal. Defensively, the Tiger goalkeepers finished with 15 saves on 17 shots on goal.

Against Viterbo, the two teams were neck and neck throughout, but Iowa Wesleyan couldn’t get a breakthrough on the offensive end.

Viterbo sent a plethora of shots on target, but the Tiger’s back-line stood tall.

Iowa Wesleyan didn’t allow a goal in the first half, but Viterbo found the back of the net early in the second in the 51st minute.

The Tiger defense continued to stay strong and it wasn’t until the 90th minute that Viterbo would make it a two-goal deficit.

It was a one sided affair in terms of shots.

Viterbo outshot Iowa Wesleyan 23-4 and 15-3 with shot on goal. The Tiger’s Cheleena Squibb amassed 13 saves in the loss. Marta Cuenca had two shots for Iowa Wesleyan with two on target.

With the loss, the Tigers move back to .500 at 7-7.

On the men’s side of things, the Tigers struggled to get anything going on both sides of the ball in their opening game against the Bruins.

Just seven minutes in, Bellevue would make it 1-0 on a penalty kick.

Like in the women’s match, Iowa Wesleyan’s Joao Viera was given a red card in the 13th minute to put the Tigers down a player early.

With just four minutes to go in the first half, Bellevue added another point to the scoreboard to make it 2-0 heading into the halftime.

The Bruins picked up right where they left off in the first as it took them all but 22 seconds to make it 3-0 in the second.

Iowa Wesleyan continued to struggled up until the final whistle as Bellevue added their fourth and fifth goals in the 60th and 67th minute.

The Tigers were led offensively by Richard Arch with 10 shots. Harrison Gailey led the Tiger defense with two saves on seven shots on goal.

Against Viterbo, it was much of the same for the Tigers.

Viterbo opened the scoring with a goal at 12:41. The Tigers were able to knot it up in the 28th minute off a goal from Thomas Mullen, but Viterbo had all the answers.

Just under five minutes later, the V-Hawks took back the lead, 2-1. They would hold onto the advantage through the rest of the first half.

In the second half, Viterbo continue its barrage scoring a trio of goals throughout the half.

The first of the three scores came in the 54th minute, while the other pair came in a little over a four minute span from in the 65th minute and the 69th minute.

The loss moves the Tigers to 3-11-1 overall and 0-2-1 in conference play. The Tiger men will be back on the pitch on Saturday against Graceland University. The game is set to kickoff at 3 p.m.