Box Score

TAMPA, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern men’s soccer team dropped its third straight match Wednesday night on the road against the Tampa Spartans, 3-1.

The Sharks’ (4-4-2, 0-4-0 SSC) only goal came from freshman Matthew Ilter (Lake Mary, Fla.) who scored in his second straight game. In the 78th minute, Ilter received a pass through the Tampa (7-4-0, 2-2 SSC) defense from Craig Heenighan (Sr., Widnes, England) and scored in the second start of his young career. Both of Ilter’s goals this season have been assisted by Heenighan.

The Shark offense was dormant in the first half as NSU was only credited with three shots, the first coming after the 30 minute mark. Stian Roa (Fr., Oslo, Norway) took his team’s first shot from 40 yards away and nearly took the lead as the ball sailed over the goalkeeper and bounced off the crossbar.

Spartan forward Kemal Malcom, who took 70% of Tampa’s shots in the half, scored the game’s first goal in the 38th minute. Juan Gonzalez(Sr., Oakland Park, Fla.) took one more shot before the break but the Sharks still entered halftime trailing 1-0.

Sophomore goalkeeper Lyle Howe (Coral Springs, Fla.) did his best to keep his team down by only a single goal and collected two saves on shots inside the penalty box in the first 10 minutes of the second half. In the 58th minute, Tampa’s Ryan Griffin was fouled inside the box and put his team up by two on a penalty kick. It was the fourth penalty kick scored against the Sharks this season.

The Sharks’ best chance to cut the lead in half came in the 65th minute when Darryl Gordon (Sr., Miami, Fla.) shot was blocked to Roa, who received the rebound to take another blocked shot. Roa made a hustle play to collect the ball again and took a shot-on-goal but came up short. Tampa scored its third goal of the game in the 67th minute when David Gulec passed through two Shark defenders to Andrej Gulan who scored his second goal of the season.

The Sharks had five shots-on-goal over the final 22 minutes of the game, including Ilter’s goal, but could not put themselves back into the match.

The Sharks will return home on Wednesday, Oct. 13 to face the Eckerd Tritons at 7 pm.