Kansas City shifts strategies to defeat Bradley 3-2 in the second game of the season 

A match filled with many on-the-spot changes, allowed the Kansas City Roos men’s soccer team to prevail against the Bradley Braves 3-2. 

Kansas City started off the game strong with several aggressive offensive attacks leading to the first goal of the night from Graduate forward Philipp Basara, in the 23rd minute. Shortly after, a yellow card was issued to Samuel Nagy and a red card was issued to Noah Gonsalves. This required other teammates to step up and a shift in strategy, which worked in the Roos favor. 

  “If you get a red card, you have to change a lot,” Basara said. “We dropped the line a little bit. Obviously, we stopped playing a lot of offense but we still got our chances to be fair. At the end, you know, you just stay a little bit deeper and you run a little bit more…. Overall we did a really good job of adjusting.”

As the second half progressed, Bradley picked up their game and attempted to score four goals, two consecutively but the Roo’s senior goalie Cooper Clark succeeded in blocking off all but one. Amidst the intense offense switch on Bradley’s behalf, sophomore midfielder Shfeo Lar, saw a crevice of opportunity, and scored his first collegiate goal, the second of the match.

As this was the second game of the season, we see that the men’s soccer team focused more on pushing forward and attempting to score on offense, instead of being on the defense and staying back. They made sure to work on this during practice. 

  “Last game we just stayed back and there wasn’t really any communication between us, but this game we made sure in practice to create a game plan of playing it fast because they can’t man mark us if we play it fast,” Lar said. “And also, in soccer, fitness is a very important thing. Running back and forth. Even if you don’t get the ball, you keep going and then you’re going get a chance with it.” 

The last 15 minutes of the game were filled with anticipation and nonstop shots. Kazuki Kimura scored the Roos’ 3rd goal off a penalty kick in the 77th minute of play. Bradley gets a yellow card during the 86th minute of play. Shortly after this Bradley manages to score their 2nd goal of the game, putting the pressure on Kansas City. The Roo’s defense succeeds in stopping Bradley from tying the game, making the score 3-2 at the end of the game.

  The Kansas City Roo’s return to play Tulsa in an away game, September 2nd at 7:00pm. 

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