Statesboro, Ga. --- The Georgia Southern men's soccer team took down Stetson, 1-0, on Tuesday evening (September 2nd).

It would take less than ten minutes for the Eagles to get their first goal. In the ninth minute, Emil Seedorff found space and worked around a defender to get into the box. Then, he would play a ball to Ricky Louis who backed down his marked man. With the ball, Lewis spun and found just an inch of space to fire off a shot just inside the center of the box into the low corner for an Eagle goal. For Louis, it's his second on the season after netting 2025's opening goal at Charlotte. 

With the advantage, the Eagles would use their stellar defense the remainder of the night to smother the Hatters' offensive chances. They would attempt just two shots in the first half and four in the second. The only shot on target of the night for Stetson was a shot from the Hatters' Daniel Makowem in the 63rd minute that Eagle keeper Nate Martinez had to quickly dive for and stop the chance.

The Eagles would miss out on a few more chances at goal, however. With just a minute remaining in the first half, Louis again sprinted and found space, getting past the keeper and finishing the job. Unfortunately, the sophomore was offsides and the goal was removed after review. In the 61st minute, Louis would again see another chance after being fouled in the box by a Hatter. However, a saved penalty kept the contest at just a one-score contest. 

The Eagle defense fought off three corners and six shots on the evening. For Stetson, their keeper made six saves and forced the Eagles to commit twelve fouls to just seven for the Hatters. However, Stetson would get four yellow cards, all in the second half, to just one assigned to the home squad, which came in the first half.

With the clean sheet, it is the first time in program history with keeping the shutout in four consecutive matches. For Martinez between the sticks, it is now his eleventh career clean sheet and fourth in 2025.  

"The lads have been superb in the back," said Eagle defender Edan Sears, who had a crucial forced goal kick in the final few minutes to stop a Hatters' threat. "Everyone has been involved, whether it's those starting or on the bench. It's really good to be playing as a unit and I think that's the reason why we've kept the clean sheets. We defended as a whole team, which I think makes the job a lot easier as well."

For coach Squires, he commends the defensive unit, but knows that more needs to go into the attacking phases.

"We've had to keep four clean sheets because we have not scored enough goals to kill games off. We know we might not be able to do that all season, so we've got to address the attacking side of the ball to be a little bit more comfortable," said Squires. "Look, four clean sheets does not happen often at this level, so we need that resiliency and not change our shape like we did in the last few minutes of the second half. Credit to guys like Edan and AJ [Pama] coming in to solidify things and to Tomas [Morales] for giving us energy. Those guys are staying ready for when they're needed. It's an ugly win, we didn't compete well enough in the second half on our first and second balls, but we,'' take 3-0-1 with four shutouts for sure."

The Eagles next take their 3-0-1 record to North Florida on Monday, September 8th. The match was scheduled at UNF last season, but was switched to play in Statesboro due to weather. Kickoff in Jacksonville is set for 7 PM.