by Jack McGonigal
(OMAHA, Ne)—-The Omaha men’s soccer team went into Monday night’s match against UNLV still searching for their first win, and came up empty-handed as the Runnin’ Rebels took down the Mavericks, 3-1.
Omaha put together an impressive defensive display against Columbia, but couldn’t carry over their performance from Friday night. It didn’t take long for UNLV to find the back of the net, as Bailey Letherman scored in the ninth minute off of the assist by Bryan Martinez-Serrano. Omaha struggled to get any looks in the attacking third, and then Martinez-Serrano again helped the UNLV attack with another assist, this time finding Marco Gonzalez to push the Runnin’ Rebels lead to two goals heading into halftime.
Omaha appeared to come out of the break with an extra head of steam. In the 55th minute, Vlad Jokic put Omaha on the board after Diego Gutierrez took a shot from outside the box that deflected off of UNLV goalkeeper, Lukas Betts, and fell to Jokic to punch back in the net. The match had just gotten a bit more interesting— putting the Mavs back within striking distance and putting the fans back on their feet.
Martinez-Serrano followed up in the very next minute with his first goal of the night, and immediately ended any momentum the Mavericks had gained with the Jokic goal. He brought the deficit back to what it was at the halftime break for Omaha, and the lead never changed for the remainder of the game.
The Mavs would eventually fall 3-1 to the Runnin’ Rebels.
Omaha now heads into their toughest stretch of the season. They return back in action Friday night as they host the Michigan Wolverines, who received votes in the Top-25 rankings. They follow that with the Dodge Street Derby and take on Creighton (who also has Top-25 votes) at Morrison Stadium, and then head on the road as they take on No. 25 Air Force.
Listen to Friday night’s call on MavRadio.fm.
