STATESBORO - The Georgia Southern men's soccer team fell 3-1 to the West Virginia Mountaineers on Friday, October 28, at Eagle Field.

The Mountaineers (6-6-4) got on the board first with a goal in the 28th minute. In the 43rd minute, the Eagles (1-13-1) responded when Mauro Gutierrez-Solis tipped his own blocked penalty kick back into the net for the equalizer. WVU would retake the lead in the 44th minute to lead 2-1 at the half.

In the back half of action, WVU would score once again to take a 3-1 lead, which would eventually become the final in the match.

"I was proud of the effort that the boys put forth tonight," said head coach John Murphy. "They made a commitment before the game that we were going to honor our seniors and I thought they did with every ounce of energy they had. When you're playing against top level competition, there are momentum swings that you either need to take advantage of or overcome, and unfortunately the three goals came from three different momentum swings. That was unfortunate because I thought there were great periods of the game. We created the penalty where the goal came from but we created good chances and good moments."

"It's my job to try and find the positives even when things aren't going our way," Murphy continued. "I told the kids I'm proud of them, and I think this is another step in our development. We're not happy where we are with our record, and we understand that we don't need to be reminded of that. But we're building something here, and you can build off of performances like that. Sometimes you have to separate the performance from the result, and this is one of those days where the overall performance was good."

UP NEXT
The Eagles will take on the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers in the final regular season match of the season. Kick-off from CCU Soccer Stadium is set for 7 PM on Tuesday, November 1.