For the 4th year in a row, the MNU Men's Soccer team hosted a first round game in the NAIA National Tournament. This year, Roosevelt University (Ill.) came to town as the automatic qualifier out of the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference. And for the 4th year in a row, the Pioneers did enough to advance to the Round of 16 in Delray Beach, Florida. In what has become standard practice for MNU, the guys waited until overtime to take care of business. In the 106th minute,
Tanner Hunjak scored the golden goal to send the Pioneers to Florida.
On a cold but sunny day the Pioneers came out in the first half and got the scoring started. In the 36th minute, Hunjak scored his first goal from a
Felipe Abreu assist. On a ball played into the area, Abreu was able to flick the ball into the path of Hunjak's run. He headed the ball past the keeper for the opening goal. MNU went into the half time break with a 1-0 lead.
That one goal lead was not enough as it turned out. In a seven minute span early in the second half, the Lakers went from one goal down to a goal up. In the 54th and 61st minutes they scored goals to put MNU down 2-1. At this point the MNU response was predictable. They began to press numbers forward to look for the tying goal. In the 82nd minute,
Stephan Philippe played a ball to the back post.
Cameron Wallace was there to head the ball back across the box and it trickled through for the goal. Headed into overtime the score was 2-2.
In the overtime period, MNU created the first opportunity with a set piece. Then the Lakers came down and had a series of corner kick plays that could have ended the game. On the first one,
Alvaro Beltran made a game saving block and then
Juan Pablo Riesco made a point blank save. This proved to be vital as just minutes later, on a quick restart,
Eduardo Heringer played a pass to Hunjak for the winning goal. Hunjak, playing as a substitute off the bench, secured his brace and the Pioneers advanced to the Round of 16 once again.
For the game MNU outshot RU 16-8, with SOG being 4-3 in RU's favor. The Laker goalkeeper was credited with zero saves on the day. Riesco had 2 saves for MNU. Roosevelt ends their season with a 16-4-2 record. MNU is now 15-5-1 on the year. All 16 winners from today's matches around the country will head to Delray Beach, Florida on November 30 – December 5. Keep track of the tournament
here.
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