The men’s soccer team played in the first regular season match in Wildcat history during a road trip to Missouri.

The men faced Missouri-St. Louis at on Sunday, Sept. 4 at Don Dallas Field in St. Louis.

The Missouri-St. Louis Tritons took the victory in the match by a score of 3-2, even though the Wildcats were ahead at half by a score of 2-1.

The Tritons opened up the match by scoring in the first 29 seconds with to a steal by a defender. Just a minute later the Wildcat freshman Ben Hoffman recorded the first goal ever in men’s soccer for NMU.

Coming close to half time, with the score 1-1, the wildcats scored for the second time. Freshman midfielder Sveinn Karlsson put the wildcats into the lead going into the half. In the second half, the Wildcats were held scoreless.

The Tritons went onto score twice more with a goal in the 55th minute and 59th.

Sophomore center midfielder Sam Popp, freshman forward Ben Hoffman and freshman right midfielder Sveinn Karlsson tied for 2 shots on goal. Junior goalie Brin Lapuh made a total of 6 saves.

Head Coach David Poggi praised the fans who traveled down to Missouri to catch the first ever men’s soccer game.

“We’ve got some crazy supporters who’ve been following us,” Poggi said. “We had a group that flew in, including Ben Hoffman—who scored the first goal in the history of the program—his family was there which made that very special.”

After a weekend of traveling the Wildcats are back on campus this week. The team will be training and practicing for another road trip this upcoming weekend, which features the team’s first two conference games.

The first game will be at Ashland on Friday, Sept. 9. Ashland has a record of 1-0 overall. The second will be at Ohio Dominican on Sunday, Sept. 11. Ohio Dominican has a record of 0-1.

“Last week’s road trip was such a good trip, it prepared us for this opening weekend which is going to be real difficult,” Poggi said. “It’s going to be a real challenge for us, but we’re going to continue to make steps and get better.”

The Wildcats first home game will be Friday, September 16th against Lake Erie.