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| Nick Landon |
The Miners have played on break-even terms against the Great Lakes Valley Conference teams as a whole, but their biggest struggles have come against the conference's elite teams.
Wednesday night was another case of that as No. 8-ranked Southern Illinois Edwardsville routed the Miners 5-0 at the UMR Soccer Field, claiming at least a share of the GLVC regular season title in the process and putting the Miners into a must-win situation this weekend when they head to Indiana to finish conference play.
The Cougars put three of the goals on the board in the opening half, starting with Mike Banner's goal at the 11:43 mark when he ripped a shot through the outstretched arms of UMR goalkeeper Mike McNamee. John Matthews scored after he got to a loose ball in the box after a free kick to give the Cougars a 2-0 lead at 29:14, then Rob Ridder scored the first of his two goals on the night just 4:37 later.
Ridder and Mike Zaegel scored goals 2:06 apart in the second half to round out the scoring.
SIUE (10-3-3, 10-2-1 GLVC) outshot the Miners (7-8-1, 5-5-1 GLVC) by a 13-9 margin for the night, but had nine shots on goal to UMR's five. Nick Landon had two of the five shots on net for the Miners, who got four saves from McNamee in the contest.
UMR will face Saint Joseph's (1-11-3, 0-8-2 GLVC) Friday at 5 p.m. in Rensselaer, Ind., before closing league play Sunday at Indianapolis.
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