PELLA— The pressure of the Iowa Wesleyan University offense provided a stiff test, but the Central College men's soccer team withstood the pressure on the defensive end in a 2-1 win Wednesday afternoon.
The victory keeps Central's season record unblemished at 6-0-0 and sends the Tigers to 3-3-1.
Central left the halftime talk with a 1-0 lead thanks to forward
Miguel Pina's (junior, Chicago, Ill., Taft HS) third goal of the year eight minutes into the game.
After an equalizer by the Tigers just minutes into the second half, the Dutch answered. A free kick in from midfielder
Salvador Villanueva (senior, Morris, Ill.) gave defender
Logan Serbousek (freshman, Cedar Rapids, Prairie HS) his first collegiate goal.
"He's usually the hungriest player in those situations," coach
Garry Laidlaw said. "Logan seems to have that little bit of extra desire around the box."
A
Kiel Pederson (junior, Arlington Heights, Ill.., John Hersey HS) goal gave the Dutch a 3-1 advantage and ultimately put it out of reach for the Tigers.
"I was really pleased with the way we responded in the second half after they equalized," Laidlaw said. "I thought it was good statement of reinforcement to our team. We didn't panic; we kept pushing and got the goals"
In front of the keeper, defenders
Taylor Petkovich (sophomore, Bow Mar, Colo., Heritage HS) and Landon Daniels (sophomore, Webster City) played the full 90 minutes and were key to the effort according to Laidlaw.
"Those two are workhorses for us," Laidlaw said. "They are in there for reason. They are steady and solid.
"All in all, we did some good stuff but there also times that we didn't play well. You're not always going to look your best, but at the same time it was a good stepping stone towards conference."
Saturday marks the start of the Iowa Conference season when Central travels to Indianola to battle against Simpson College. The two teams played a pair of thrilling matches last year with Simpson getting the last laugh in a 5-4 overtime win the conference tournament quarterfinals.
