Tigers battle through adversity to defeat Garden City 3-2

Playing a man down for the final 52 plus minutes of its game against Garden City on Wednesday in Arkansas City, the No. 4-ranked Cowley College men's soccer team showed a great deal of toughness while pulling out an important 3-2 win over the Broncbusters.

Cowley (8-1-1) remains in first place in the Jayhawk Conference with a record of 6-0-1. Garden City (5-4-3) falls to 1-3-3 in the conference.

Before falling a man down following a red card on sophomore defender Kohsuke Fukodome, Cowley had to deal with the loss of another one of its top defenders as Andre Ecker, a second-team all-conference and all-region selection, left the game midway through the first half due to injury.

Cowley trailed 2-1 at the end of the first half as the Tigers' Sota Nakazono scored his second goal of the season to give the Tigers an early 1-0 lead prior to Garden City getting first-half goals from Vitor Mendonca and Joaquin Iturra.

Cowley tied the game early in the second half when Carmello Bello scored his fourth goal of the season off a penalty kick.

The game would remain tied before freshman Kanta Ishii took a long pass from Samuel Puth and juked a defender before scoring what would turn out to be the game-winning goal with 19:57 left to play.

"This was a great game for us to learn more about our strengths," Cowley head coach Ruy Vaz said. "I am proud of our boys for showing maturity in a moment of adversity. Hats off to all the players who really stepped up when we got the red card."

Ishii, who leads the team with four assists, now has three goals on the season.

"It was a great team effort, but we also need to highlight Kanta Ishii," Vaz said. "Kanta is incredibly talented and showed his skills when things were hard. We are lucky to have a player like him."

Cowley will play at Seward County (5-4-3) on Saturday at 2 p.m. The Saints are 1-3-3 in the conference, with one of its three ties coming at Cowley on September 4.

"The next game will be exciting, a big battle against a tough Seward squad, and we all need to be prepared," Vaz said.