By FHSU SPORTS INFORMATION
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – No. 12 Fort Hays State University Tigers was defeated on Wednesday night by No. 19 Maryville University Saints, 3-0.
In every nearly every major statistic, the Saints came out leading. By the end of the match, the Tigers had failed to put even one shot on goal.
Santiago Agudelo opened up the game with a fire lit inside from their previous defeat at Eastern New Mexico, taking two shots in the first four minutes. Following a corner by Sergio Villalba in the 12th minute, Maryville raced down the field and scored a goal off of the boots of Mirza Hasecic from the edge of the 18-yard box.
From that moment the Saints had complete control of the first half, only allowing one shot from the Tigers.
Beginning the second half, an Agudelo shot that missed the target preceded a pair of fouls, one by each side. After that foul, the Saints were once again backing the Tigers into their own territory. In the 53rd minute, the Saints’ Braden Johson hit the back of the next on a three-yard tap in to increase the Maryville lead, 2-0.
Just over 20 minutes later, the Saints struck again. The ball found the feet of Grady Schliepsiek just outside the six-yard box. Schliepsiek struck the ball inside the left post past goalkeeper Cullen Fisch for the final goal of the match.
A bright spot of the Tigers performance was their ability to win corners (6) and the abilities of Fisch, who tallied four saves on seven shots faced, at the back of the defense.
The Tigers will head to Denver, Colo. on Sunday to face off against the Regis University Rangers for Fort Hays’ final out of conference matchup of the regular season. While the two programs have never gone head-to-head, Regis currently posts a 0-1-1 record after drawing with Saint Martin’s University and losing to Concordia University (Ore.).