Tigers Men's Soccer Fall in 1-0 Loss to Mercer

Sunday, September 8

Birmingham, Ala.

2:30 PM

University of Memphis

2-2-0

Mercer

4-0-0

MERCER

Memphis

Photo by: Michael Wade

Sep 08, 2019 | Men's Soccer

Box Score

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – The UofM men's soccer team closed out its weekend in Birmingham by dropping a matchup with Mercer on Sunday night. The 1-0 decision sets the Tigers back to 2-2 on the young season.

After allowing a goal early in the first half, Memphis tried to bounce back in the second half, but was unable to overcome the early score.

Mercer started the game off fast, scoring a goal in the third minute of the match. After the miscue, Memphis locked down defensively, allowing just one shot from the Bears in the rest of the first half.

The Tigers sought to regain an equal score through the rest of the half, outshooting the Bears 6-2 in the first 45 minutes.

"That's something I tell every team, you can't win games in the first five minutes, but you can certainly lose them," Head coach Richard Mulrooney said of the early score. "We came out a little sluggish, and they came out and got the one goal. Even though we had 88 minutes or whatever to come back, that was tough to overcome."

Even into the second half, Memphis kept the aggression up, producing multiple shot attempts. Several times throughout the half, the Tigers found good looks on shots, yet none of them would find a way into the net. Memphis outshot the Bears 7-5 in the second half.

"We had our chances. They kind of sat in, and rightfully so, they had the lead, we had to go find a goal." Mulrooney said of outshooting Mercer. "I thought we were able to knock it around and create some looks, but it's a game of inches. A missed cross, a final pass doesn't make it, they clear it down the field and we had to start over."

Midway through the second half, the Tigers had arguably their best chance to equalize the game. For about five minutes starting at the 60^th minute, Memphis earned two corner kicks and let off five shots, but the Mercer defense wouldn't break.

In the closing seconds of the match, freshman Brendan Dexter, who earned his first-career start, got one last look at a shot, but it was saved by Mercer's keeper, effectively ending the match.

"A lot of guys got their first playing time or saw big minutes this weekend, so hopefully that goes a long way to helping fewer mistakes being made," Mulrooney added about the weekend. "Losing hurts. We want to try to find some consistency, we've got tough games ahead of us."

Overall, Chris Mikus led the way with three shots, while Dexter and Ben Roberts were close behind with a pair of shots to each of their names. Goalkeeper Parker Lackland recorded three saves,

Memphis stays on the road for the next outing of the year, heading to Cincinnati, Ohio, to take on Xavier. Match time against the Musketeers on Saturday is set for 6 p.m.