What Bowling Green men’s soccer coach Fred Thompson expected to be an adventure turned into just that Wednesday afternoon as the Falcons fell to Michigan State 3-0 at the soccer team’s practice field.

“It turned into half adventure, half train wreck,” he said. “There were some guys out there who were in their first big collegiate event. But now that they’ve been through it, we can move forward.”

The team was out-smarted, out-muscled and out-played by a more experienced Spartan team.

For the first 21 minutes of the game, they were able to hang with Michigan State, then MSU’s Jordan Gruber scored his first of two goals on the afternoon to give the Spartans a lead they would not relinquish. J. Minagawa Webster was the other Spartan to score on the afternoon.

“They had three really nice goals,” Thompson said. “The train wreck was that from the bench I could see them coming all the way.”

That wasn’t the only negative for the Falcons, as they were able to get only two shots off while their counterparts shot 24 times.

“We did create two very good chances,” Thompson said. “We had a couple of offensive opportunities that were good. When we did get the ball under control, we were good.”

Their defense wasn’t up to par either, as they had trouble on that end of the field as well.

“Defensively, we have to execute better,” Thompson said. “Our group defending was poor and our forwards have a responsibility of keeping the ball on one side of the field and they did a poor job of that.”

Even though it was a rough day for BG, they did learn from their defeat.

“Technically, we weren’t as good as we need to be,” Thompson said. “Now, it’s obvious to everyone that we need to do the right things to win games, we need to take that and move forward. I believe that this is the worst game we will play all year.”

Thompson is hoping his team can move on from this game and improve.

“[The players] were disappointed, a bit down, and I hope a bit introspective,” he said. “Hopefully they take the time to figure out why we weren’t doing the things that needed to be done.”

Luckily for BG, they have a chance to move on soon, as they are hosting the Kelme Classic tournament this weekend. The Falcons will play host to IUPUI, St. Bonaventure, and Loyola-Chicago; all teams Thompson knows will give BG some stiff competition.

“We’re expecting to have a couple challenging games,” he said. “IUPUI has already beaten Michigan State and St. Bonaventure has beaten Syracuse, who is normally a pretty good team.”

Action will start tomorrow at 1 p.m. when Loyola-Chicago takes on St. Bonaventure at Cochrane Field. The game will be followed by the Falcons playing IUPUI at 3.