COLUMBIA, S.C. - CIU men's soccer hosted (RV) Tennessee Wesleyan University on Saturday afternoon. The Bulldogs are sitting at No. 1 in the Appalachian Athletic Conference standings, with the Rams coming in at No. 5. An early goal for Tennessee Wesleyan would give them the advantage they needed to keep a loss off of their record, as CIU fell 1-0. The Rams are now 7-2-3 on the season and 5-2-2 in AAC play. 

Match Summary: CIU was awarded the first corner kick of the match (5:11) but could not taken advantage of the kick from Romulo Barreto. Two minutes later, Tennessee Wesleyan found the back of the net to take a 1-0 lead. Moments later Marco Muhlebach made an attempt, but the Bulldogs keeper saved it. 

Late in the first half Sonny Quintanilla and Barreto each took a shot that sailed wide, while CIU keeper Chase Knizek picked up two saves to aid the Rams defensively. In the waning minutes of the frame, Tennessee Wesleyan's keeper deflected Gabriel Rokov's header over the goal, resulting in a Rams' corner kick. 

Michael Abongo looked to capitalize off the aforementioned corner, but his shot went wide to end the first frame 1-0. 

In the second frame, the Bulldogs offense took the first shot that Knizek hauled in. Abongo's header from a corner kick was blocked, resulting in two more corners from Barreto. Tennessee Wesleyan's backline prevented the Rams from scoring off of these opportunities. 

CIU came close to finding the back of the net, but the Bulldog's keeper blocked back-to-back shots from Juan Ospina and Abongo (51:41). 

The Rams' defense held Tennessee Wesleyan to just one more shot for the remainder of the game, but they could not get themselves on the board. They made one final attempt with a corner kick from Lucas Galdino but fell 1-0 to the Bulldogs.