Men's soccer team falls short in first national tournament game

The Eastern Florida State College men's soccer team lost a tight match against Murray State in the opening game of Pool B at the NJCAA Division I National Tournament in Wichita, Kansas.

The Titans, who are the No. 2 seed, gave up a couple of late goals to fall 3-2. They will need to hope Tyler Junior College defeats Murray State on Monday and then beat Tyler on Tuesday to advance to the national tournament semifinals.

In the opener, the Titans were in control from the start as they had a couple of good looks in the first couple of minutes.

In the 35^th minute Thiago Pires gave the Titans a lead when he took a shot the bounced off the post and buried it. It was Pires' third goal of the season and gave Eastern Florida State College a 1-0 lead.

Murray State would tie things up two minutes into the second half.

It would remain tied for 20 minutes when the Titans got a free kick outside the box. Pedro Amancio took it and hit a nice shot to give the Titans the lead once again. Amancio now has four goals this season.

Eight minutes later a collision in the box led to a penalty kick for Murray State. Joel Green scored the penalty to tie the game once again.

This time it was Murray State who would take the lead as Dominic Woolley found Pepijn Borst for the goal.

The Titans had multiple chances to tie the game back up including the final seconds of the game, but Murray State held on for the upset victory.

Eastern Florida State College outshot Murray State 23-7 and had 10 corner kicks in the contest.

The men's soccer team will play Tyler Junior College at 1:30 p.m. EST on Tuesday in the final game of Pool B. The winner of the pool will advance to the semifinals on Thursday.