{"id":20311,"date":"2023-10-31T17:02:23","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T01:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=20311"},"modified":"2023-10-31T17:02:58","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T01:02:58","slug":"mens-soccer-on-winning-streak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/mens-soccer-on-winning-streak\/","title":{"rendered":"Men’s soccer on winning streak"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by: Jaylin Hardin | Sports Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

Men\u2019s soccer is having a smashing start to their season. After going three and two in the preseason, the team did not let this stop them. Starting conference play with a 1-1 tie against the University of Simon Fraser, British Coloumbia, men\u2019s soccer quickly bounced back and are now on a win streak of six \u2014 three of these six games were shutouts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These wins come as a massive improvement from the 2022 season, where the team had only two wins compared to 13 losses and two ties. This improved record means higher points on season; giving the team 21 points on the season thus far. This is 11 points higher than their total of eight points from last season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Freshman Center Back, Olaolowua Balogun, attributed the team\u2019s success to the tight-knit environment the team has.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re like a family and do everything together and no one\u2019s left out,\u201d he said. \u201cOur coach treats us like family, like he\u2019s our dad.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Head Coach Michael Behonick started his first year of coaching for Western this season. Previously, Belhonick spent seven seasons as the assistant coach for the University of Pittsburgh men\u2019s soccer team.<\/span><\/p>\n

Balogun has high hopes for the team this season. \u201cI see us winning GNAC and going to playoffs and going far and better things to come,\u201d he said. Western\u2019s men\u2019s soccer has recently had a limited history in terms of GNAC competition \u2014 only officially becoming an intercollegiate team in the 2022 fall season.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe had recruits come over and we treated everyone as family, even if we didn\u2019t know who the person was, it\u2019s a good environment to be in and everyone\u2019s welcome,\u201d Balogun said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Against Western Washington University this last Thursday, men\u2019s soccer won 2-1, officially bringing their win streak up to six. Both of Western\u2019s goals were scored in the first 20 minutes of play and within five minutes of each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

Junior transfer, Gabriel Silva, scored off an assist from Sophomore, Alex Gringon, and Junior, Andres Labate. Five minutes later, it was Gringon who scored the final goal for the team, assisted by Junior, Moises Cisneros, and Freshman, Yahir Ocampo.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Contact the author at howlsports@wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":20316,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[245,75,1598,1553,1595,1556,1596,1597,66,39],"class_list":["post-20311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-athletics","tag-gnac","tag-intercollegiate","tag-soccer","tag-university-of-pittsburgh","tag-western-oregon","tag-western-washington-university","tag-win-streak","tag-wolves","tag-wou"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}