INDIANAPOLIS - The IUPUI men's soccer team dropped its long awaited season opener on Monday (Feb. 22), falling to Purdue Fort Wayne in Horizon League play, 2-0 at the on-campus Michael A. Carroll Stadium. PFW's Logan Lee scored twice for the victors while Nemanja Gvozdic helped set up the game-winner in the game's fifth minute. 

IUPUI junior goalkeeper Quinn McCallion registered a pair of saves in goal in the loss and freshman Rayan Choukri attempted a game-high four shots off the Jaguars' bench. IUPUI (0-1 HL) outshot the visiting Mastodons by a 12-8 margin, but put only three on frame. 

"It's incredibly disappointing to lose any game that you play. As competitors, we want to go out and win any time we take the field," head coach Brian Barnett said. "It's hard to expect more from our group than what we got in terms of execution, particularly coming off a 10-day quarantine without consistent training. We didn't get outcompeted for second balls and we didn't get outcompeted going into tackles.

"We made two really critical errors and they capitalized on them and we failed to capitalize on the opportunities we created."

From the opening kickoff, IUPUI resembled a team trying to shake off more than a year's worth of rust while the Mastodons came in playing their third contest of the spring season. Barnett's squad came in having just capped a two week COVID related quarantine and had to play from behind for virtually the entire game on Monday. Lee staked PFW (1-2 HL) to an early lead just more than four minutes into the contest when he rolled a left-footed shot just inside the far post after receiving a pass from Gvozdic.

IUPUI had plenty of chances to retaliate, particularly in the first half as it played with a stiff wind at its back. Riley Shives had a header sail high in the 11th minute and Corey Goede just missed getting on the end of a corner kick at the back post in the 17th minute. 

In the 32nd minute, Shives played a nice ball to Carson Shrader out wide, but the sophomore midfielder saw his drive sail just over the crossbar. 

IUPUI struggled to get in the attacking third in the second half and the task became tougher in the 73rd minute when Lee struck again. This time, he was able to take the ball off McCallion's feet and then maneuver a left-footed shot into an empty net for his third score of the year. 

The Jags pushed increased numbers forward down the stretch with Choukri attempting to find paydirt, but ultimately IUPUI was unable to sneak one past PFW goalkeeper Erik Josson. Despite being blanked, it was a win of sorts for the team to even be on the field after a COVID pause and Central Indiana having recently been hit with its largest snowstorm in nearly a decade. 

"You have to have gratitude that you're even playing soccer. We're grateful for that," Barnett said. "We're grateful that we had an immediate outpouring of effort from our coaches and our administrative staff and folks from campus to get our field ready and being able to play today. That outpouring of support wasn't lost on our staff or our players and the effort that went in to just making today's game possible was phenomenal."

"We were thankful just for the opportunity to play."

Barnett got strong efforts from a number of faces and saw some positives, both on the defensive side and in the attack.

"I knew based on the way that (Purdue) Fort Wayne was going to defend, we were going to be able to connect some passes and play some possession. The question was whether we were going to be able to get something on the backend of those possessions," Barnett said.

IUPUI will return to action on Sunday (Feb. 28) when the Jaguars trek to Loves Park, Ill., to face UIC at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. That match will be played at the Indoor Sports Center.