Aggressive Play Leads to Victory in Season Opener

Conor McArthur scored a goal and added four assists in the Archers season opening victory
Conor McArthur scored a goal and added four assists in the Archers season opening victory

After a challenging preseason schedule, the St. Louis Community College men's soccer team officially opened the 2017 season in grand fashion, as they ran past Carl Sandburg College 9-1 Tuesday afternoon, on the Flo Valley campus.  

Freshmen Conor McArthur (a goal and four assists), Kieren Westwood (a goal and two assists), Connor Walters (two goals) and Ali Seoud (two goals) started their collegiate careers with a bang on a perfect afternoon for soccer. Josh Graham started the scoring in the eleventh minute with a header on a corner kick from McArthur.  In the nineteenth minute, Mattias Tonking blasted a lose ball in the box to the back of the net, giving the Archers a 2-0 lead.  During the twenty-eighth minute, Walters scored on a corner kick off an assist from McArthur that started a span of three goals in a minute as Carl Sandburg answered quickly to pull to within 3-1, but McArthur thought scoring goals looked like fun, so he thought he would give it a try in the twenty-ninth minute on an assist from Westwood making it 4-1 STLCC.  With forty seconds remaining in the first half, Westwood made it 5-1 as he connected on a pass from McArthur.  

The Archers came out after halftime and scored two goals with this the first six minutes, as Walters and McArthur hooked up one more time and Dyan Chapa scored inside the box on an assist from Westwood making the score 7-1.  Seoud closed out the scoring for the Archers with two goals, the first coming off a lose ball in front of the net and finishing the scoring in the seventy-eighth minute with a goal off of a perfect pass from Holden Leming making the score 9-1.  

The Archers, who are ranked 12th in the first NJCAA poll of the year, were aggressive from the first minute of the match until the very end as they fired off thirty six shots in the match and collected ten corner kicks.  

STLCC returns to action on Friday afternoon as part of a doubleheader with the women's team as they welcome Allen County Community College to the Flo Valley campus.  The women kick off at 2:00 pm, while the men follow up with a 4:00 pm start.