Bowling Green scored twice in the first 10 minutes and made the early lead stand up for 80 more, beating Belmont 2-0 on Sunday afternoon in a key Missouri Valley Conference men’s soccer match at Cochrane Stadium in Bowling Green.
Senior Aiden Ptacek converted a penalty kick just 76 seconds into the match after a Belmont handball in the box, and freshman Luciano Perez-Cernuda doubled the advantage in the 10th minute, capitalizing on a misplay by the Bruins’ freshman goalkeeper high in the penalty area.
Belmont spent the rest of the afternoon chasing the game. The Bruins fired 31 shots — a season high — and outshot Bowling Green 21-3 in the second half, but senior goalkeeper Jason Ball made eight saves and the Falcons added two team saves on the goal line to record their third consecutive shutout. A Belmont penalty appeal early in the second half was waved off after video review found no Bowling Green handball.
The win was Bowling Green’s sixth in a row, the program’s longest winning streak in almost three decades. The Falcons improved to 7-6-2 overall and 4-1-0 in the Missouri Valley Conference.
With the victory, Bowling Green sits in first place in the MVC standings with 12 points, three ahead of Evansville and five ahead of Belmont, and holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over both. The Falcons have clinched no worse than the third seed for the MVC Tournament and will host at least one conference tournament game in early November.
Belmont fell to 6-5-3 overall and 2-1-1 in conference play, and the loss snapped the Bruins’ five-match unbeaten streak. Belmont had earned a result in eight of its previous 10 matches before Sunday.
Bowling Green closes the regular season looking to protect its hold on first place and the tournament seeding that comes with it, while Belmont returns home needing points from its final matches to improve its own postseason position.
Photo: Mbrickn, CC BY