LU-Belleville reaches NAIA semifinals
The Lindenwood University-Belleville Lynx are now one of four teams left in NAIA men’s soccer.
LU-Belleville defeated American Midwest Conference rival Columbia College 2-1 in the NAIA national quarterfinals Wednesday evening. The Lynx (17-7) got two goals from Oriol Morego, including the game-winner in the 66th minute to secure a spot as one of the final four teams in the nation.
The Lynx will MidAmerica Nazarene in the semifinals with the winner playing for the national championship. The game begins at 5:30 CST Friday.
On a sloppy field in Delray Beach, the game began auspiciously for the Cougars (19-4) as they scored in the first two minutes of the game. Vadim Cojocov beat the Lynx back-up keeper, Christian Espitia, who was starting in place of Nicolas Nicolaci, who was injured in the round of 16 game.
From that point on, Espitia was phenomenal, not allowing the Cougars to score again, and making two incredible saves from attempts inside the box. Columbia totaled seven shots on the game but only three were on goal.
The Lynx dominated the offensive flow of the game, outshooting the Cougars 13-1 in the opening half. The turning point came in the 38th minute when Lakin Kehde was issued a red card for tackling Fernando Carcamo after he got behind the Cougar defense. The Cougars were then forced to play a man down for the remainder of the game, which the Lynx took full advantage of.
On the ensuing free kick, Lynx captain, Guillermo Chinchilla put the ball in the box for Morego, who headed in the equalizer for his third goal of the national tournament. Chinchilla notched his sixth assist of the year on the play.
In the second half, the Cougars nearly took the lead again in the first minute but Espitia came up with one of his two saves to keep the game tied.
With 23 minutes remaining in the contest, as the Lynx continued to dominate on offense with the man advantage, Morego continued his remarkable tournament scoring his third straight game-winning goal. The sophomore from Barcelona, Spain, now has 10 goals on the season and has scored the game-winning goal in each of the Lynx’ three NAIA post-season victories.
For the game, the Lynx outshot the AMC regular season champions 23-7, including a 7-3 shots on goal advantage.
“I guess we weren’t sure how the game was going to go because it’s the third time this year we have met Columbia and every game has been extremely close,” said Lynx coach Dan Hogan. “With the field conditions the way they were, we weren’t sure how it was going to go and then giving up the early goal, I wasn’t sure how the boys were going to react to that, but they didn’t seem fazed at all. They didn’t change anything. They kept playing their own style and kept playing and the longer the half went, the more we were able to get our outside backs into the attack, which ultimately led to the free kick and goal.
The Lynx are now winners of eight straight games and have won four straight games by the score of 2-1.
This story was originally published December 2, 2015 at 10:05 PM with the headline "LU-Belleville reaches NAIA semifinals."