The No. 5 ranked SMU men’s soccer team’s undefeated streak came to an end at the hands of the UCF Knights on Saturday night in Orlando.
“Today we didn’t play to our potential,” head Coach Tim McClements said. “We’re obviously very disappointed. We’ve been on the road a long time, and we’ve played a lot of away games. It’s something that you have to deal with. But tonight just wasn’t our best; we didn’t perform at the level that we thought we could,” he said.”Central Florida was a good team. They played well and they played hard. We’ve got to put this loss behind us.”
With the loss SMU drops to 9-1-0 on the season and 1-1-0 in Conference USA play.
UCF (6-2, 2-0) got on the board first when forward Nik Robson scored his seventh goal off an assist from midfielder Warren Creavalle in the 12th minute.
The Mustangs responded with a goal of their own in the 27th minute to knot up the score, 1-1.
Freshman midfielder Robbie Derschang was able to find midfielder Josue Soto who scored his third goal of the season. The assist was Derschang’s first of the year.
The score remained the same for the rest of the first half, but the second half belonged to the Knights.
In the 66th minute, midfielder Spencer Scott scored the game winning goal off an assist from A.J. Nelson. Scott fired a hard, high shot that deflected off of SMU goalkeeper Craig Hill’s hand and landed in the back of the net, giving the Knights a 2-1 win.
Scott’s goal lifted the UCF men’s soccer team to its first victory over a top-10 team in program history.
UCF committed 20 fouls on the evening and picked up six yellow cards, the most of any opponent in an SMU game.
“We said to the guys after the game that losing is bound to happen,” McClements said. “Not many people go undefeated. It’s something we have to learn from and move on. We feel we have a lot more to offer. Starting 9-0 is great, but you’ve got to learn how to take a loss well. We can turn this into a positive.”
SMU will play their first home game after a month on Oct. 6 at 6 p.m. when the Mustangs take on Conference USA opponent South Carolina.
