POPLARVILLE, Miss. — No. 10 Pearl River men’s soccer team hit some adversity Tuesday night, dropping its second consecutive contest, 3-1, against No. 19 Mineral Area College.
“We were impatient on the ball tonight and then got caught on some counters,” head coach Drew Gallant said. “We made a tactical change during the game that really helped. We should have made that change sooner. There were still some mistakes tonight that we shouldn’t be making at this point.
“We like to try to get some adversity. We’ve hit some by dropping back-to-back games. We were fortunate these last two teams (Northeast and Mineral Area) wanted to travel to us.”
HOW IT HAPPENED
While the goals have been flying in the season’s early going, Pearl River (1-2-1 overall) struggled to find one in the first half against Mineral Area (5-1).
PRCC’s first real chance came in the 36th minute. Pedro Trindade (São Paulo, Brazil) saw an opening and fired a shot from outside the box that the Cardinal goalkeeper saved.
The Wildcats finally got on the scoresheet in the 50th minute of the night. Emil Corfitzen (Copenhagen, Denmark) delivered a perfect through ball to the sprinting Tycho van Haaren (Doetinchem, Netherlands). The attacking midfielder wasted no time, blasting home a shot on the first touch and into the upper right corner of the net for the goal, 1-0. The goal was the freshman’s first in his PRCC career.
PRCC had the lead for nine minutes as the Cardinals converted a penalty kick in the 59th minute to equalize 1-1.
MAC snatched the lead in the 66th minute. The Cardinals fired a shot that clanged off the crossbar, rebounded down and was headed home by a crashing forward, 2-1.
Trailing by one goal, Pearl River began pushing numbers up the pitch to try to equalize. Mineral Area eventually struck on the counterattack, getting into a three-versus-one position and putting a ball into the net, 3-1.
NEXT UP
The Wildcats play a neutral site contest on Tuesday, taking on Southwestern Illinois College at 3 p.m.
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