Men’s Soccer Takes Down No. 9 Barclay

ANKENY, Iowa—Poised and polished. The Faith Eagles men's soccer team put together its finest 90 minutes of soccer in years Friday night, taking down the ninth-ranked Bears of Barclay College, 3-1.

The Eagles played with poise and a polished confidence, rattling the Bears with their aggressiveness on both offense and defense. Joshua Forgie was given the task of marking Barclay's best player—a task he performed to near perfection, frustrating the tempo of Barclay's offense.

The Bears were tagged with two yellow cards—the first coming at the 35:18 mark with a penalty in the goal box which led to a made penalty kick by James Busenitz to put the Eagles up, 1-0.

Entering the second half with a 1-0 lead, the Eagles continued to get great scoring opportunities, finally breaking through once again at the 73:35 mark on a great assist from Moses Amani to Carson Odle, who made it 2-0, Eagles. The Bears struck back quickly with a fast break goal four minutes later to pull within one, but the Eagles' cushion was restored when Joshua Forgie booted a shot into the net off a rebound for a 3-1 lead that would hold as the final score.

"I think it was our defensive discipline that made the difference tonight," said Coach Backous. "We got in position, we had numbers behind the ball, and that made all the difference because they had really skilled and athletic players that could have hurt us if we weren't disciplined."

The Eagles have a quick turnaround against another historically-solid opponent in Manhattan Christian College on Saturday, September 17. MCC is 3-1 with wins over Spurgeon, Arlington Baptist, and Emmaus. Game time is 3 p.m. in Ankeny.