Forgive University of Illinois Springfield Prairie Stars men’s soccer coach Chad Jones for sounding like a broken record.
Throughout the preseason and now that the season has started, he continues to stress the importance of his squad “getting better each game and training session.”
After losing its season opener to William Jewell 3-0 last Friday, it didn’t take UIS long to put forth a better effort. The Stars led 1-0 against the Rockhurst University Hawks on Sunday in a Great Lakes Valley Conference match before Rockhurst pulled out a 2-1 win in a short-handed match at Kiwanis Field.
“We played with a lot of heart,” Jones said. “We did very well. We just came out in the second half a little flat and they got one early, then we decided to play again.”
Junior Brandon Belcon scored the Stars’ first goal of the season on a scramble in the box after receiving the ball from UIS junior defender Peter Ottolini. With two players marking him, Ottolini was able to get a head on junior teammate Brett Schubert’s long throw in and flick the ball to the far post. The Stars were ahead 16 minutes into the contest.
The soccer team was featured in a September 6, 2010, article in The State Journal-Register.
Download a PDF of the article
