Men's Soccer Falls in Exhibition Finale, 2-1

Aug. 20, 2011

East Lansing, Mich. - No. 19 Michigan State wrapped up its men's soccer exhibition season on Saturday evening, falling to Northern Illinois, 2-1, at the Shindigz National Soccer Festival in Fort Wayne, Ill. Freshman Adam Montague had the lone Spartan tally, but a pair of first-half markers by the Huskies was too much for the MSU side to overcome.

Freshman Isaac Kannah had both scores for Northern Illinois - he opened the scoring in the first half with an unassisted tally, his third goal of the exhibition season. The freshman from Plymouth, Minn., then doubled NIU's advantage later in the first half with a goal off a feed from sophomoreJames Stevenson.

I was really happy with the way we played early," said head coach Damon Rensing. "I thought we came out with a good mentality, but then we had a couple of lulls and that is what hurt us. The mistakes we made we were punished for, because they scored twice on us in a 10-minute span."

Trailing at the half by a 2-0 score, the Spartans regrouped at the intermission and almost immediately after play resumed cut the Huskies lead in half. Freshman Adam Montague took a feed from senior Rubin Bega and scored for the first time in an MSU uniform. While Rensing was happy with his team's adjustments in the second half, the Spartans were not able to gain an equalizer and fell by the one-goal deficit.

"We have to take what we've learned in these exhibition games and and put it into play," continued Rensing. "Going forward, all the games count - so we're going to have to tighten up and get ready for the start of our season next weekend."

MSU opens the season at DeMartin Stadium next Saturday when it hosts Detroit at 2 p.m.