October 12, 1998

Monmouth,IL – The Monmouth men’s soccer team continued to struggle against Midwest Conference opponents this weekend, dropping a pair of road matches at Beloit and Lake Forest. Monmouth was defeated Saturday at Beloit by a score of 5-2 then suffered a heartbreaking 1-0 loss in overtime at Lake Forest on Sunday. The team’s record falls to 2-8-2 overall and 0-5-1 in league action.

At Beloit the hosts got hot early and scored four times in the first half. BC’s Seth Baker connected for three goals in the first 22 minutes and the Bucs added another before the break. Down 5-0, Monmouth finally got on the board at 65:30 on a header by senior midfielder Washington Mukumbila (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia/ Tigoni International). It was Mukumbila’s second goal of the season and came off a corner-kick assist by senior Sean Lowery (St. Peters,MO/Francis Howell North). Freshman Justin Wheeler (Charleston,IL/HS) set up Monmouth’s second score with another perfectly executed corner kick, which junior Matt Burge (Champaign,IL/Central) knocked home with an excellent diving head shot. The goal came with only two minutes left in the match and provided the final margin. Freshman goalkeeper Joel Cowan (Alton,IL/HS) was credited with four saves in the nets for the Scots.

Monmouth suffered its second conference shutout on Sunday as the Lake Forest Foresters pulled out a 1-0 victory in overtime. After 90 minutes of scoreless play the two teams headed into a 15-minute sudden-death overtime period. Lake Forest scored on a corner kick just three minutes into the extra session for the win. Cowan earned 10 saves in the match, which saw Lake Forest outshoot Monmouth by a 26-8 margin.

"We couldn’t have had a worse start than we did against Beloit, " said Monmouth coach Rue Carthew. "The Beloit strikers tormented our defense in the first half after their early goals but we played more to our potential and with much more confidence in the second half. We played excellent defense at Lake Forest and made some tremendous runs at the goal. A change in our defensive scheme made the difference but we could not find the back of the net to score."

Monmouth will take to the road again next weekend for another Midwest Conference doubleheader. The Scots play at Lawrence on Saturday afternoon (3:00 PM kickoff) and travel to St. Norbert on Sunday (1:00 PM start).