By Ryan Brown

The UK men’s soccer team ended its home stand against an eager IPFW team on Tuesday night. They started out on top in the 18^th minute when sophomore forward Tyler Riggs played a through ball to a streaking Matt Lodge who drilled it far post.

Just before half IPFW’s Max Touloute made a good individual run and hit the inside of the post. After the half he picked up right where he left off; in the 48^th minute he leveled the scores with a curling effort from twenty yards out into the upper ninety, leveling the score at one. He celebrated by doing the John Wall in front of angry Cat fans.

The dance move seemed to motivate IPFW when Touloute assisted the team’s second goal to fellow striker Colin Helmrich less than three minutes after the first goal.

UK, however, would respond through Lodge in the 55^th minute when Riggs passed the ball to him at the top of the box and he hit a shot through the narrowest of alleys into the back of the net. Then, freshman midfielder Steve Cabos put the Cats up one with his first career goal for UK with Riggs and redshirt senior Josh Mulvany combining to get him the ball at the back post.

Although the Cats were up one with time dwindling down, Lodge was not done. Senior midfielder Josh McCrary played a perfect ball over the top to Lodge who calmly brought it down and secured the win with his first ever hat-trick, making the final score 4-2 in favor of UK.

UK head coach Ian Collins was conflicted after the game. He was proud of the win and the home stand as whole but felt the Cats needed to “be more clinical on the ball.”  He was also very praising of Mulvany, who was playing in his first ever game for UK.

“Mulvany played terrific for his first game of the season,” Collins said.

Lodge now has five goals on the season and Riggs has three assists with Cabos and Mulvany also recording their first points for UK.

The Cats are now 4-0-1 and are heading on the road for the next two weeks when they go to California to play Stanford and Cal; then to South Carolina to take on Brown and High Point. After South Carolina its off to Nebraska to take on Creighton. UK will return home September 23^rd to take on Evansville.