Calvin men’s soccer split two non-conference games, facing two non-conference opponents this past weekend in Wheaton, Illinois as they prepare for conference play. They have one more non-conference game before playing Alma on the road September 17.

Travis Vegter, a senior forward who was named to last year’s socccer.com All-America first team for scoring 27 goals and providing six assists, scored his first goal of the season which proved to be a winning goal in the second game of the weekend against Elmhurst.

Head coach Ryan Souders was pleased with the performance:

“If we play like we played against Elmhurst from here on out, it could be a really fun fall.”

He mentioned that the number of shots isn’t always indicative of dangerous chances, but the Knights did manage to put 8 of their 17 shots on target in the game as well as maintain possession more than their opponent.

A losing effort against tenth-ranked Wheaton College wasn’t all bad for the Knights. Wheaton had control of the game early on, scoring two goals and not allowing a shot until the 36th minute. Calvin showed resilience by scoring in the 41st minute and then again in the 50th to level the scores. Wheaton pushed a late goal in to take home the win.

“We let them dictate the first thirty minutes, and they outplayed us.  From that point on, we outscored them, we created great opportunities.” said Coach Souders. “Obviously it was a disappointing loss, but hopefully one where we can reaffirm what we are good at and are able to move on.”

The Knights defense has only given up multiple goals to Wheaton and was able to maintain a shutout of Elmhurst.  With new players in new positions, Coach Souders mentioned that there is some cleaning up to do:

“It was good [to shutout Elmhurst] but we want to be great.”

The first conference home game will be Saturday, September 20 at 2:30 p.m. against the Kalamazoo Hornets.