CENTRAL, S.C. – The defending NCCAA National Champion Southern Wesleyan men's soccer team dropped their season opener, losing a second half lead and falling to St. Andrews 2-1 on Thursday night at Childs field.

The Warriors got on the board first as Ivan Malagon knocked home a deflected ball after Noel Fischer's initial shot was saved by SAU keeper Leandro Custodio just 1:53 into the second half.  The Knights responded seven minutes later with the equalizer from Caio Liberatti and added the game-winner in the 71^st minute from Preston Rolle.

Neither team produced many good chances though each team was able to take more than 10 shots overall. St. Andrews put just three of their 12 shots on target but were able to score on two of them. The Warriors took 15 shots, many of them blocked, and put four on target.

The game was really best described as a foul fest with 45 fouls committed and five yellow cards shown.  The Warriors were whistled 26 times. 

Alejandro Sanchez and Bruno Liozzi and Noel Fischer each took three shots for SWU with Fischer putting two on target.  In fact Fischer had the last shot for the Warriors in the 72^nd minute that was saved by Custodio.  SWU was unable to get another shot on the goal or even a corner in the final 18 minutes while the Knights had two shots including a header that went just over the crossbar.

The Warriors will be back in action on Saturday at Bob Jones with an approximate start time of 3:30 p.m. The men's match will follow the women's which is set to kick-off at 1 p.m.  SWU returns home on Wednesday, Sept. 10 to host Laurel University.

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