BILLINGS, Mont. – The Bushnell men's soccer team found themselves on the losing end of a match for just the second time this season, falling to Cascade Conference Champion and NAIA No. 8-ranked Rocky Mountain College on Thursday evening, 4-1.
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Rocky Mountain (12-0-3, 10-0-1 CCC) out-shot the Beacons 16-2, holding Bushnell to their lowest shot total in over seven years. Despite that, Bushnell (10-2-5, 6-2-3) was able to find the back of the net, something that no team had done since October 9, a string of four straight clean sheets. Rocky Mountain continued their own prolific scoring in earning their tenth consecutive victory.
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Head Coach
Joao Ehlers said, "we struggled defensively in the beginning of the match and ended up being penalized for it. We will now recover and focus on finishing the regular season strong on Saturday."
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Rocky posted two goals in the first half, jumping ahead in the 6th minute as the CCC-leading scorer Fynn Sweeting posted his 11th goal of the season. The game-winner came in the 34th minute as Luke Tooze scored his first of two goals.
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Consecutive strikes from Tooze and Henry Chalkey in the 61st and 64th minutes made it 4-0 before Bushnell finally got on the board.
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In the 77th minute,
Sammy Bayer (pictured) scored off a corner kick from
Tomas Jujihara, firing the ball to the inside of the near post. It was Bayer's third goal of the season and the third assist for Jujijhara.
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UP NEXT: The Beacons will close out the regular season on Saturday at 11:00 am (MT) when they travel to Helena, Montana to take on Carroll. The Saints (8-5-2, 7-3-1) earned three points on Thursday with a 4-0 win over Corban to jump over the Beacons and into second-place. The teams will be playing for second, with Southern Oregon still looming behind them with a chance to catch over the weekend with a pair of victories.
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