Contact: Nicholas Osterloo, Sports Information Graduate Assistant, 630-637-5302

Box Score

NAPERVILLE, Ill. (Oct. 23, 2019) - Earning their fifth College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) win of the season, the North Central College men's soccer team defeated Elmhurst College 2-1. This is only the second time in the last 23 years that the Cardinals have won five conference games in one season.

Just nine minutes into gameplay, senior Alexis Flores drew an Elmhurst yellow card in the penalty area. Already converting two penalty kicks on the year, Flores buried it into the right side of the net to give the Cardinals an early 1-0 lead. Seven minutes later, the Cardinals took advantage of a corner kick from Austin Lombardi as Jack Fairwood finished he job by scoring on a header. 

With one minute remaining in the first-half, Elmhurst drew a penalty kick off of an Evan McCarthy yellow card. The Bluejays top scorer, Keegan Thompson, was denied by Marco Soto who made his first save of the night.

The defense for the Cardinals stood their ground as they allowed five second-half shots, two on target, but zero goals as North Central cruised to their tenth win of the season.

With Flores' penalty kick goal, he moves into seventh place in program history for career points with 67. Another Cardinal advanced in the history books as Soto captures his sixth shutout of the season to move up to third place for most shutouts in a season.

Soto improves to 10-4-1 on the year as he recorded three saves while Donnie Kvein of Elmhurst falls to 9-7-1 on the year.

North Central faces their toughest opponent to date on Saturday as they face No. 18 North Park University (11-4, 4-1 CCIW). The game is set to begin at 7:30 at Holmgren Athletic Complex in Chicago.