Junior midfielder Nolan Moore delivered his first goal as a Cardinal to help lift the 18th-ranked Louisville men’s soccer team to a 1-0 victory over visiting SIU Edwardsville on Tuesday night at Cardinal Park. Click below for more details.
With their third straight win overall, including the second consecutive shutout, the Cardinals improved to 5-2-0 on the season while the Cougars dropped to 4-4-0 overall with their second straight loss. During the current winning streak, Louisville has now allowed a goal in 228 minutes dating back to the first half of the Sept. 15 win over CSU Bakersfield.
“I was proud of our guys for the effort especially with the very quick turnaround (after Saturday night’s road game at UCF),” said Louisville head coach Ken Lolla. “It was a close game and a hard-fought game and I thought we did what we needed to do tonight to get the result.”
After the two teams played a scoreless first half, the Cardinals connected for the only goal of the night in the 65th minute when Moore (New Westminster, B.C./Cal Poly) took a pass from junior Santiago Vélez (Longmont, Colo./Ohio State) and scored past SIUE goalkeeper John Berner. The assist for Vélez was the first of his career, while sophomore Ricardo Velazco (Casa Grande, Ariz./Cal State San Bernardino) was credited with his fourth assist of the season after starting the scoring chance.
“It felt good to get the goal and to be honest, I did the easy part because it was a great ball by Santi (Vélez),” said Moore. “We started connecting balls and playing simple and that’s what Santi does best. He found me and I found the back of the net.”
That was all the offense Louisville needed as the Cardinals held SIUE without a shot on goal and finished with an 11-8 advantage in shots. Junior goalkeeper Joachim Ball (Deutenberg, Germany) earned his third shutout of the season and did so without being forced to make a save. The Cougars finished Tuesday’s match with a 3-1 edge in corner kicks.
Up next, No. 18 Louisville returns to American Athletic Conference action hosting Temple on Saturday at 7 p.m., ET at Cardinal Park.
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