Men’s soccer ends season at Hastings

The Northwestern men’s soccer team suffered a tough2-0 loss to top seeded Hastings on Saturday in the GPAC tournament semi-final game.
The Raiders were the aggressors early in the game and outshot their opponent 10-3. Three of their shot attempts were on target. On its one shot attempt of the half, Hastings scored in the 19th minute.
“Our goal as a team was to control the ball and maintain possession while being very aggressive,” senior captain Matt Dowie said. “We needed our defense and offense to be on the same page at all times.”
In the second half, both teams were very aggressive; the Raiders trailed the shooting match 11-9 in that half. The Raiders only had one shot on target in the half. Hastings scored again in the 79th minute to put the game away for good.
NW had 19 shot attempts in the game. Eight shots were off target, seven shots were blocked by the defense, and the four shots on target were saved by the goalie.
Junior Gabriel Goncalves had seven shot attempts — one on goal — to lead the Raiders. Sophomore Koray Karakas had three shot attempts with one on goal.
“We play a really tough nonconference schedule,” head coach Dan Swier said. “Those games prepared us to succeed in GPAC. Finishing with 11-plus wins for the third-straight season is tremendous. With all of our impact seniors on the squad, we never lost the motivation to succeed.”