The Tabor College men?s soccer team won its first two games of the season in impressive fashion, shutting out both Manhattan Christian College, 3-0, and Sterling College, 1-0, at home last week.
?I felt like we controlled play in both performances,? coach Grant Brubacher said. ?Our defense was outstanding as we notched our first two shutouts of the season.?
In Tuesday?s match against Manhattan Christian, David Simmet scored the first goal five minutes into the match. Sergio Torres scored off an assist by Josh Reiswig 14 minutes later to bump the score to 2-0.
Tabor did not score again until late in the second half on a goal by Robert Masson for the 3-0 final.
Simmet, Torres and Masson led the offense with one goal each. Reiswig added one assist and two shots on goal.
Goalkeeper Dalton Burkhard blocked all five of the Crusaders? shots on goal in the second half.
Tabor?s win over Sterling Saturday was the conference opener. Both teams remained scoreless throughout the first half of the match. Torres scored the only goal of the game late in the second half.
Contributing to the offensive effort were Rafael Marins with one assist, Simmet with three shots on goal and Marcos Bandiera with one shot on goal.
The defense held Sterling to one shot on goal for the game. Burkhard played goalkeeper all 90 minutes of the contest, recording one save.
?I am very proud of the resilience of our team to fight through a tough preseason and start conference play with a win,? Brubacher said.
But he said his team still needs to improve to remain competitive in the KCAC.
?Our attacking play was good?but our finishing comes and goes,? he said. ?We go through stretches where we lose our shape and stop executing our style of play.
?As the season continues, we need to work through these lulls in order to compete at the level we aspire to.?
Coming?Tabor (2-7-1, 1-0-0) continues conference play at home this week against McPherson at 7 p.m. Wednesday and the University of Saint Mary at 3 p.m. Saturday.
