On a rain-soaked night at USI’s Strassweg Field, the men’s soccer team pulled off a convincing 7-2 over Kentucky Wesleyan College Oct. 26.

“I felt we played well tonight. Wesleyan is a young, strong team and their record doesn’t quite show how well they’ve played all year,” men’s soccer head coach Mat Santoro said. “For us, we got the early lead and kept playing them tough all night and came out with the win.”

The Eagles started off the game hot with a goal by sophomore midfielder Miles Durham. The goal was assisted by freshman defenseman James Kennedy. Just two minutes later junior midfielder Austin Andrekus came away with an unassisted goal to push the Eagles’ advantage to 2-0. That was the first of the three goals for Andrekus, to extend the Eagles lead to 5-0 going into halftime.

In the second half, the Eagles slowed their pace down a little but still added two more goals. USI gave up two scores on the defensive side on just 5 shots on goal. The Eagles ended the game with 31 shots on the Kentucky Wesleyan goalie.

“It was a good win tonight, overall the goal keeping was strong, and defensively we played strong,” Andrekus said. “I feel like all season we’ve gone through some ups and downs, we had a starting line-up and were able to put it together late in the year and win games like tonight.”

Although the Eagles won, it put an end to the teams up and down season.

“Even through the down times, I felt like the guys were buying in and kept a positive attitude all season,” Santoro said. “They stayed focused and believed in the message.”

USI dropped its final game of the regular season to Oakland City Friday to finish the regular season with a 5-11-2 record. The loss ended the Eagles chances of making the Great Lakes Valley Conference tournament but the team is looking to build on this win.

“We want to take this win and build on it going into next season,” Santoro said.