The Alma College men's soccer team welcomed #6 Calvin College to their home field Scotland Yard in Alma, Mich. today (Sept. 22) in a battle of two of the three teams that had previously remained unbeaten in the league. The Scots fell to the Knights, 1-0. 

At the end of the day Alma's record fell to 5-2 overall and 2-1 in the MIAA while Calvin improved to 7-0-1 overall and 3-0 in the league. 

The Knights netted an early and the only goal of the match on a cross in the fifth minute. Calvin had the opportunity to score again after pulling the Scots goalie out of position but a defensive save by junior Kyle Kansman (Farmington Hills, Mich./North Farmington) in the ninth minute kept the Knights lead stuck 1-0. 

At the end of the game Alma had five corner kicks compared to Calvin's six. Junior goal keeper Nick Strait (Jenison, Mich./Jenison) recorded career high six saves in the 1-0 loss. Senior Zach Vandeveer (Elk Rapids, Mich./Elk Rapids) paced the way for Alma with two shots in the match (one on goal). 

On Saturday (Sept. 26) Alma will pack their bags and travel to Adrian, Mich. to take on Adrian College in conference play with a game time set for 12:00 p.m.

QUOTES

Head Coach Josh Oakley

on the day... 

"We've done it before, this team is capable of coming out fast and it hasn't happened here unfortunately. It happened at Hope and it happens a lot with these guys, unfortunately today we didn't and gave the #6 team in the nation a quick goal and even though we did have bright moments we had our work cut out for us early."

"We got back to playing our game, not sure if it was letting a goal in but we can play and when we play we play a good style of soccer, we play to our strengths and we have our success. We didn't do enough of that but we did do parts of that, you could see us passing the ball well and creating opportunities for each other. We did get in to their box quite a bit, it's just making the most of those opportunities."