Iowa Western Men's Soccer has its first winning streak of the season after coming from behind to beat Barton Community College. The Reivers went down early after a well worked move up the left side of the field by Barton was finished off from close range by Damia Viader in the 12th minute. After a slow start from Iowa Western, the half evened out as the majority of the game was played in the middle third of the field. The Reivers started to create opportunities as the half came to a close from set pieces, but were unable to get any efforts on target.
The second half started same as the first when Barton came out firing. Gabriel Arreas was able to punish the Reivers for a bad give away on the left flank. The Cougars efficiently moved the ball 70 yards up the field when Mario Magana was able to find Arreas in the middle of the box. He was able to slot the ball past Sampatakos to make it 2-0 in the 49th minute. The Reivers started the comeback in the 63rd minute when Tanner Miller won a free kick just outside of the box. Theo Le Calve was able to get the ball over the wall and into the top right corner from the ensuing free kick. The goal was the boost that the Reivers needed as the energy within the team kicked up a notch. The Reivers found the net again when a glancing header from Nate Ayalew went in off the post in the 74th minute. Sacha Fagot was able to run down a long ball in the corner. He found Quinton Kipara at the top of the box who then swung the ball into the box and found the top of Ayalew's head just in front of the defender. His redirection left the Keeper with no chance. Kipara then completed the comeback 5 minutes later when his one time effort on the half volley took a generous deflection as it beat Semmle in the Barton goal to make it 3-2 in favor of the Reivers. Ayalew had a hand in the final goal as well when he was able to create space on the end line to put a cross into the box. The clearing header made its way to Kipara who struck the ball in stride towards goal. The Reivers were able to see out the remaining 10 minutes to win their second game in a row.
Goalkeeper George Sampatakos came up big on two separate occasions in the second half to keep the Reivers in the game. He made a sprawling effort to deny Arreas a second goal and keep the score at 2-0. He made another close range block after he was initially beat only for Reiver captain Jaaziel Thompson to make the block on the goal line. Sampatakos was able to make the save on the rebound to keep the game at 2-1.
The Iowa Western Men's Soccer team will next host Iowa Central Community College this Wednesday, September 12th at the Reivers Sports Complex. The match can also be viewed live at 4:00PM on www.njcaatv.com/iwcc.
