No. 19 Drake Tops Men's Soccer, 1-0

OMAHA, Neb. – Creighton outshot 19th-ranked Drake by a 19-7 margin, but it was not enough in a 1-0 loss to the Bulldogs in miserable weather conditions Wednesday night at Morrison Stadium. Drake ended a 14-match winless drought in Omaha, getting a goal from Thomas Ostrander in the 48th minute in the battle of the two teams that graced the top of the preseason Missouri Valley Conference poll.

Drake moved to 8-3-1 on the season and is now 3-0-0 in the MVC standings. Creighton fell to 5-3-2 on the year and is 3-2-1 in league play, and will play its final four conference matches on the road.

Drake scored the game's only goal at the 47:05 mark of the season when Matt Kuhn's throw in found Garrett Webb, who turned the corner on a defender to center a ball to Ostrander near the middle of the box. Ostrander would head a ball off a Bluejay defender past the outstreteched arm of CU keeper Brian Holt for his third goal of the season.

“I'm really glad it's a double round robin format this year,” commented head coach Bob Warming on the MVC's one-year schedule of playing every league team twice. “Our guys definitely want another shot at them. It's great that Drake has had such great success this year and has such a high RPI (20). We've been the hunted for so long in the conference, but we are looking forward to doing the hunting over the final few weeks of the season.”

Creighton's best chance in the final minutes came with 2:54 to play, when All-American defender Chris Schuler's header went just over the cross bar after a nifty cross from Dion Acoff. Acoff himself had a golden chance to score late in the first half, but his only shot on goal in the match was turned away. Ethan Finlay's shot in the 57th minute appeared to be headed for the back of the net, but went across the goal mouth and just right of the far post.

The Bulldogs had been 0-12-2 all-time at Creighton, and won for just the second time overall in 29 meetings against its I-80 rival (2-20-6).

In addition to its decisive shot advantage, Creighton had an 8-2 advantage on corner kicks. However, CU couldn't beat Drake keeper Michael Drozd, who made three saves to earn his fifth clean sheet of the fall. Jeff Thayer led CU with five shots, and three teammates each had three shot attempts.

Creighton hits the road for it's next three matches, starting with a match at Evansville on Saturday at 7 p.m.

NOTES: This marks the first time in school history the Creighton program has lost two MVC home matches in the same season ... Creighton had been 13-1-1 at home against nationally-ranked teams at Morrison Stadium before Wednesday night.

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Players Mentioned

Dion Acoff

Ethan Finlay

Brian Holt

Chris Schuler

Jeff Thayer