University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
Lee Finds The Net, But UNC Asheville Falls 4-1 To Elon In Season Opener
08.26.2016 | Men's Soccer
THE RUNDOWN
Score: Elon 4 UNC Asheville 1
Teams: Elon (1-0-0)
       Asheville (0-1-0)
Location: Durham, N.C.
Durham, N.C. - The UNC Asheville men's soccer team fell 4-1 to Elon University in the opening game of the John Rennie Nike Invitational this evening to open the regular season.
GAME AT A GLANCE
UNC Asheville goalkeeper Chris Katt stayed active early, helping to prevent a few scoring opportunities for Elon. However, the Phoenix broke through at the 25:51 mark on a goal from Nicholas O'Callaghan. The shot came from the left side and was crossed into the right side of the net.
In the first half, Elon outshot UNC Asheville 13-3 overall and had three potential opportunites called off due to offsides.Â
Late in the half, a tough luck foul was called on Frank Morales, which led to a successful penalty kick from Elijah Agu with just over two minutes left.Â
The first half produced 16 total fouls, and there were 34 total in the game. In addition, both teams combined for six yellow cards.
Elon opened up a three goal lead just over four minutes into the second half when Agu took a through ball from Jaiden Fortune and deposited it past Katt into the left corner of the net.
After Fortune missed a wide open chance at a four goal lead, junior midfielder Richie Lee prevented the shutout and gave UNC Asheville hope with his team's first goal of the season with just over 20 minutes left by intercepting a pass and finishing it one-on-one with the keeper.
However, any hope of a comeback was thwarted when Elon's Austin Hill scored with 12 minutes left to push the lead back to three.
Agu had a chance at a hat trick with 11 seconds left, but Katt made a diving stop to his right to thwart a penalty kick attempt.
NOTABLES
- The temperature was near 100 degrees at kickoff
- Lee led the UNC Asheville offense with four total shots. Overall, the Bulldog offense produced 12 shots (three on frame). All three came from different players.
- On the other side, Elon had eight of its 20 shots go on frame.
- Katt, a redshirt senior goalkeeper, made four saves for UNC Asheville.
- Elon received votes in the first NSCAA coaches poll.
QUOTABLES
"It was a good game against a very organized, talented opponent. I thought that Elon did a very good job of putting us under pressure, and we had some moments where we had chances, but we weren't quite as sharp as we needed to be in the final third. Their goals came a lot from us making some youthful errors and that's going to happen with a young group - especially if we're trying to play on the front foot. Overall, I'm disappoined with the result, but not completely disappointed with the way we played. I though there were some positives. Again, it's a long season. When you play good teams, certainly you can take some losses. The important thing with our process is we want to find out how good we are against the better teams like Elon. Again, I thought that there were some good performances, and we'll get better. Now we've got a great opportunity against a storied ACC program, and I'm looking forward to what that challenge brings us." - UNC Asheville head men's soccer coach Mathes Mennell
UP NEXT
UNC Asheville will close out play in the John Rennie Nike Invitational on Sunday with a 2:30 p.m. matchup against host school Duke. The game will be broadcast live on WatchESPN and ESPN3. The direct link can be found here. Live stats can be found here.Â
