Oct. 26, 2008
MADISON, Wis. - Forced to play shorthanded for much of the second half, the Penn State men's soccer team (4-9-1, 1-3-0) saw its attempt to secure a second Big Ten win derailed, as the Nittany Lions suffered a 4-1 road setback to Wisconsin (8-6-2, 1-4-1) on Sunday afternoon at the McClimon Soccer Complex in Madison.
Early in the second half with the game knotted at 1-1, junior midfielder Matheus Braga (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) received a questionable red card, sending him off and leaving Penn State to play down a man for the remainder of the game. Wisconsin would go on to score three unanswered goals in the span of 15 minutes. Winds that gusted up to 40 miles an hour at the lakeside field also played a factor.
Sophomore midfielder Drew Cost (West Chester, Pa.) accounted for Penn State's goal, scoring his second of the year. Braga was credited with his team-high third assist of the season on the play.
Wisconsin outshot Penn State, 14-8, for the game, including earning a 10-4 advantage in the second half. Cost led Penn State with four shots, all on goal.
The first half unfolded as a back-and-forth, defensive affair, with the teams combining for just a total of eight shots. But it would be Penn State's first of the game that would prove to matter the most. At the lucky 13:13 mark, off a pass from Matheus Braga, Drew Cost laced a shot from the top of the box to the far post that blasted past Wisconsin goalkeeper Alex Horwath and into net.
Wisconsin's Taylor Waspi started the Badgers' second half scoring run, netting a goal on a header off a corner kick in the 56th minute. Goals against the shorthanded Nittany Lions by UW's Eric Conklin, Scott Lorenz, and Brandon Miller versus would follow.
The Nittany Lions return home for the first time in three games and a period of over two weeks on Wed., Oct. 29 when they welcome No. 5 Akron (11-1-2, 4-0-0 MAC) to Jeffrey Field for a 7 p.m. contest. The match-up will mark the seventh consecutive season that the two non-conference foes have faced off, but will be just the third time that Penn State has hosted the Zips in that span. Overall, the Lions hold a 13-11-4 record in their all-time series versus Akron.