Men's soccer uses second half flurry to beat Coe

INDIANOLA, Iowa – Mitchell White scored the first of three second half goals and the Simpson men's soccer team recovered from a sluggish start to beat Coe 4-1 on Saturday.

Despite owning an 11-1 edge in shots after the first 45 minutes, the Storm (10-3-2, 3-2 Iowa Conference) found themselves tied 1-1 with a Coe team still in search of its first conference win.

"I'm very happy with the result, but I don't think we managed to find our A-Game today," head coach Rick Isaacson said. "We came out a little bit flat. We take a lot pride in being the harder working of the two teams who take the field and in the first half, we weren't."

Tyler Neumann put Simpson on the board in the 20th minute but Ryan Oppegard made good on the only shot attempt of the first half for the Kohawks (4-11, 0-5) when he headed in a serve from Ben Mineck in the 31st minute.

The second half was a different story as Simpson found the back of the net three times, starting when White dribbled around Coe goalkeeper Eric Hoar and tapped into the empty net in the 54th minute.

Josh Harry fired a low ball into the left side of the net from 15 yards out in the 62nd minute for a 3-1 lead and Louis Joslyn provided the finishing touches with a laser from 10 yards out in the 75th minute.

"The quality of soccer wasn't a whole lot better in the second half but we were working harder and that led to more opportunities and better opportunities," Isaacson said.

Luke Aronow had a relatively uneventful day between the posts, making one save as Coe managed only two shots on goal. Hoard had five saves for the Kohawks.

Next up for Simpson is a non-conference clash at Division II Upper Iowa on Monday, Oct. 21. The Peacocks (7-5-1) lost to nationally-ranked Fort Hayes State 2-1 on Friday night.