Iowa Western Opens Season With a Win

Iowa Western Opens Season With a Win
August 19, 2022

Peter Huguenin - THE DAILY NONPAREIL

Coming off a national championship, Iowa Western men's soccer showed why they're ranked preseason season No. 1 against No. 18 Illinois Central College at home on Friday in a 6-1 victory. The Reivers scored three goals in the first half with the Cougars' lone goal coming on a defensive mistake from Iowa Western.

"Good and bad," head coach Mike Brown said of his team's performance. "We're still not an elite team yet, but it's the first game. You kind of take it and you go with it."

Sophomore forward Ibrahim Conde scored the first goal of the season in the 10th minute and freshman forward Eyifehn Forfor netted two goals in the first half to stretch the lead to 3-0.
 
"We feel good about (the win)," Conde said. "It was a pretty good game. Right now we're already focused on our game for tomorrow. ... It was a good play by our fullback on the left side. He crossed the ball in the box and it just hit one of the defenders and I was here to finish it. ... To score the first goal I feel good about it, but we already focused on the next game to score another one."
 

Sophomore Diego Quintana opened the scoring 10 minutes into the second half scoring after the ball bounced off to the goalie.

Sophomore midfield Luka Nedic then scored a screamer of a goal from 25 yards out to give Iowa Western a 5-0 lead with 30 minutes left in the game.
 
"We've expended (Luka's) role a little bit," Brown said. "I used to just make him sit now maybe 5% of the time I'll let him go forward and do something. Luka is a great player. Now he's taking a leadership role this semester."

A miscommunication between the Iowa Western backline and goalkeeper ended the shutout in the 82nd minute.

"That play can't happen there at the end," Brown said. "You have to get that ball out. ... It's the commitment to the little detalis and the commitment to excellence in the little details. We won 6-1, I'm not going to be ripping them or anything, but we definitely can be better."

Redshirt freshman Daniel Martinez-Rey added one more for good measure in the closing minutes.

"I thought our defensive transition in moments was really good," Brown said. "There were moments that could have been better honestly, but overall I was happy. I just think if we want to be a certain level we have to be better in some areas. But, it's the first game."

Iowa Western is in action next at 1 p.m. on Saturday against Otero College at Lewis Central.