The UCA men’s soccer team lost to the Lipscomb Bisons 6-2 Saturday, Nov. 12, ending a winning streak of seven games for the Bears and finishing the ASUN Championship as runners-up for the second year in a row. 

The Bisons scored three goals in the first half, gaining a significant lead that the Bears couldn’t recover from during the game. 

In the second half, the Bears scored two goals and the Bisons scored three more goals. 

Nationally, Lipscomb is ranked much higher than UCA. The Bears weren’t able to have Coach Frank Kohlenstein at the game because he was red-carded in the semi-finals — suspending him from the championship game. 

Junior goalkeeper Zach Schawl said, “Obviously not having your head coach there is difficult, but at the end of the day, we were professionals about it and I don’t think it bothered us too much. Our other coaching staff is experienced as well, so not having our coach had no effect on how we played. It all just came down to the players.” 

In the first half hour of the game, neither team was able to score. Senior forward Sebastian Andreassen and senior midfielder Karim Diao both attempted to score goals for the Bears, but neither of the shots landed. 

In the 29th minute of the game, Lipscomb got a goal, followed by a second goal nearly two minutes later. The Bisons scored a third goal just before halftime. 

UCA’s senior forward Mathias Bendiksen scored the first goal for the Bears at the beginning of the second half. 

The Bisons then scored three consecutive goals within 10 minutes. 

“There’s not much of a personal highlight I feel I can take credit for after allowing six goals. I think the highlight overall is it exposes what exactly needs to be done before next season and thankfully we have the spring semester to work on it,” Schawl said.

Diao was able to score the second goal for the Bears toward the end of the game, but the Bisons outscored the Bears by a wide margin to win the game. 

Diao said he was upset about the result of the game. 

Schawl said the team was disappointed by the result, but he knows the team can improve. 

“We know we are capable of better, but we just didn’t show up,” Schawl said. “It’s definitely hard to say what we did well after a game like that, but we for sure need to trust in ourselves more and realize that we are better than what we give ourselves credit for.”