CHICAGO, Ill. – The Carthage College men's soccer team dropped their first match in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin in 2018 on Wednesday night, falling to the defending CCIW tournament champions, North Park University in Chicago, 3-0.
 
The loss drops the Red Men to 2-1 in the league and to 5-6 overall, while North Park moves to 2-1 in the CCIW and to 8-2 on the year.
 
An evenly played back and forth match in the first half was opened up in the 25^th minute as a Carthage foul in the box led to a penalty kick goal to give the Vikings a 1-0 lead late in the first half. 
 
In the second half, the Red Men attempted to create a number of counter attack opportunities but were caught in their own trap as a Carthage attack was turned away and North Park answered with a two-on-one opportunity that led to the second goal of the match for the Vikings in the 57^th minute.
 
North Park added a goal in the 66^th minute to close out the scoring, despite two chances by Jerry Patino in the final minute, giving the Vikings the 3-0 win.

"The better team won today, and I trust we will find some momentum somewhere moving forward," said head coach Steve Domin after the match.  "We had a little steam headed into the match, but frankly, we still can't hide enough of our injuries and youth that are plugged in right now.  Credit to North Park, they were ready to get back on track and came at us.  Like a heavyweight fight, we did a bunch of weaving and bobbing, but never threw any punches.  When we did, their keeper was up for it."
 
Carthage was outshot in the match 13-5 and gave up a 6-5 edge in corners in the loss.
 
The Red Men will look to bounce back on Friday in Madison, Wisconsin when Carthage faces Silver Lake College at 1:00 p.m. at Breese Stadium Field.