KANSAS City—The Truman Men's Soccer team finished their season Sunday at Rockhurst and the season falling 3-2 to the Hawks. Mac Knudsen scored on a penalty kick and Will Clayton scored his first goal since 2019, but it was not enough to overcome the Hawks.
Thomas Weber got the first shot on goal of the game in the fifth minute, but the bottom center effort was saved to keep the game knotted at zero. Not long after that Jacob Weaver had a shot for Rockhurst but the Truman defense managed to keep the ball out of the net. In the 18th minute Rockhurst went ahead as Matteo Ruggieri got the Hawks on the board. Weber had two more shots in succession as one went out top right and the other was bottom center; saved by the keeper. As the half wore on the game slowed down a bit but in the 42nd minute Ben Macinnes got Rockhurst on the board for the second goal of the game, and that's how the teams went to intermission.
Not long into the second half, Macinnes fouled in his own box to give Truman a penalty kick, which Mac Knudsen buried to cut the Hawks lead in half. Truman came close to evening the game in the 71st minute as Collin McDonough put a shot top left but the keeper came up with a save to maintain the 2-1 score. In the 80th minute Rockhurst got their own penalty shot goal as Jimmy Chonika made it 3-1 Hawks. Clayton put his goal into the net right down the middle. But time ran out on the Bulldogs as the Hawks rode out the win.
The Bulldogs finish the year with seven different goal scorers, with Luke Payne and McDonough leading the team with two each. New keepers Evan Witte and Justin Olwig combined for 62 saves, and a .697 save percentage over the course of the season. The Bulldogs fielded a young team this year, next year will return a more seasoned roster ready to take the next step forward.
