Conference play is where the games matter that much more. As the Falcons men’s soccer team started out the regular season on a winning streak, they couldn’t do that with conference play as they lost their first MAC game of the year to the Edwardsville Cougars and then a loss at Wright State Raiders.

On Friday the team lost 1-3 to Edwardsville and followed that up with a loss on Tuesday against Wright State 0-2 in the battle for the I-75 Cup.

In the game against Edwardsville, the Falcons seemed to outplay them but just couldn’t put the ball in the net enough times to come out on top.

This was the first MAC soccer contest Edwardsville is they are in their first year in the conference, therefore it also turned out to be their first conference win.

“Getting points in the MAC is tough, and we knew that coming to Edwardsville was a tall order,” Falcons head coach Eric Nichols said. “We did some good things tonight, and at moments we played some of our best soccer of the year. But, we weren’t able to convert those moments into goals and we have to give Edwardsville a lot of credit, we are not an easy team to score on and they took their chances well.”

The first goal on the contest came at the 32 minute mark as Edwardsville player Greg Solawa took a pass from Keegan McHugh and deposited it home. The shot went top right.

With under a minute left in the first, at the 45 minute mark, junior forward Tate Robertson floated a ball into the box while where junior defender Moe Mustafa got a head on it to put it in the net.

Five minutes into the second Devyn Jambga put Edwardsville back on top making use of a Falcons blunder.

At the 58 minute mark Solawa took a shot from the box which would slide home inside the right left post. This gave the game the 3-1 score it would finish at.

“We are disappointed in the result but this group has a lot of belief,” Nichols said. “The strength of our character is getting tested and I know we will respond.”

Once the whistle blew for the same time in the game against Wright State, the I-75 Cup was on its way to Wright State for the first time in six years.

“Wright State is a good team,” Nichols said. “Winning is hard, winning on the road is hard, beating a good team is hard… We were chasing the game against a good team.”

Wright State got on the board early, as they put one in at the six minute mark as a shot from midfield let to a header into the net.

This is all the scoring that would occur until right before the game ended at the 84 minute mark when Wright State set up a pretty pass off a run to a open player who slid it in the Falcons net.

“Different people evaluate who had a better game by different standards but we do it by the scoreboard… We were doing some good things. We created good shots and opportunities but we weren’t good enough in front of the two nets… We have another level and we need to find it.”

The Falcons next game is Saturday night for a MAC game against the West Virginia Mountaineers at Cochrane Stadium.