Men's Soccer | Sports
Men’s soccer struggles against Aurora and North Park

Senior Eugene Heger kicks the ball in a game last season. (Isabella Diaz-Mira | Student Life)
It was a weekend of mixed emotions for the Washington University men’s soccer team, who earned a 2-2 draw at Aurora University before falling 2-0 to No. 20 North Park University. Solid play from junior midfielder Zach Susee and late heroics from first-year forward Ethan Wirtschafter helped the Bears escape Aurora with a point, but a clinical North Park side handed WashU their first defeat of the season.
WashU struggled early in Saturday’s game at Aurora, conceding a goal in the 34th minute and not scoring for much of the match. A goal by junior defender Nathan Szpak off of a pass from Susee equalized the match in the 66th minute, but the Bears gave up another goal just a minute later.
Despite the quick response from Aurora, head coach Andrew Bordelon was more concerned with the Bears’ effort throughout the game.
“It’s less about maintaining focus and defensive discipline immediately after scoring as much as it is maintaining concentration and discipline throughout the 90 minutes,” Bordelon wrote to Student Life after the game.
WashU tied the game up at two with a dramatic goal in the 87th minute. A double pass from Susee to graduate forward Jesus Tadeo to Wirtschafter gave the first-year his second career goal and allowed the Bears to narrowly avoid the loss.
Aurora secured their first draw of the season and are now 0-3-1 on the year. Despite the draw, the Bears outshot the Spartans 9-3 in shots on-goal and 22-7 overall. Bordelon highlighted this advantage after the game.
“I thought that we showed great spirit and commitment to get a late goal,” he wrote. “We are creating a lot of chances through the run of play, as the stats show — now we just have to continue to work on finishing those moments and making the most of the chances we are creating.”
On Sunday, the Bears again got off to a slow start against North Park. The Vikings scored in the second minute and nearly scored again on a penalty kick three minutes later. Despite the spot kick save from junior goalie Adam Mallalieu, North Park relentlessly continued, scoring again in the 15th minute after a corner kick was deflected and ended up in the net.
A stifling North Park defense kept the Bears off of the scoreboard for the first time all season. The only shot on-goal was recorded by Susee in the 64th minute. WashU moves to just 1-5 all-time against North Park.
As the Bears move to 2-1-1 on the season, hopes remain high under their first-year head coach. Early in the season, Bordelon’s aggressive tactics are already looking different than the more-conservative playstyle favored by former coach Joe Clarke.
“The biggest focuses that Coach [Bordelon] has highlighted for us this year has been having confidence in ourselves to break down defenses in possession…we’ve been able to break teams down with the ball at our feet at a pretty high rate so far, and when we do lose the ball, we have been effective in winning the ball back immediately,” Susse said after the game. “It’s certainly a fun style of play, and I honestly think we can score at an even higher rate if we are more clinical in the coming games.”
Key to the Bears’ hopes is the return of graduate-student midfielder Owen Culver from injury. Culver was named to the All-UAA First Team and the UAA Third Team All-Region last season and led WashU with seven goals last season. While he does not have a timeline for return, Bordelon noted that Culver was “progressing through his physical therapy well,” and that the team was “optimistic about seeing him sooner than later.”
While Mallalieu was again in goal for the Bears, he was subbed out at halftime against North Park due to an undisclosed injury, according to Bordelon.
“Adam has been dealing with a little injury issue, and showed great toughness fighting through it for a while,” Coach Bordelon wrote. “We took precautionary measures and decided to give him a couple days rest, which I think will see him feeling a lot better.”
The junior has started all four games for the Bears, matching his total from last season. Assuming he makes a full return, however, Mallalieu has the potential to be the answer at the keeper position that WashU struggled with last season, following the graduation of All-American Matt Martin.
Ultimately, over the weekend, it was the slow starts that hurt the Bears the most.
“I think the team, as a whole, felt that we just came out flat on Sunday, and it unfortunately put us in a spot that was too much to recover from,” Susse said. “A big focus for the next couple of games is going to be coming into games with the right mentality so that we don’t put ourselves into a hole early on — we certainly can’t go behind 2-0 early in UAA play and expect to get a result out of those games, even if we outplay our opponents for the last 70 minutes.”
Update: The Bears took a step in the right direction with a dominant 5-0 win over Greenville University on Wednesday, Sept. 11 with Susee, Szpak, Tadeo, junior Owen Deming, and sophomore Nik Avillo hopping onto the scoresheet. They return home to face Webster University on Saturday, Sept. 14. With six more non-conference games before UAA play commences at Emory University on Oct. 5, the team will have ample opportunities to fine-tune all aspects of their play.