By Clark Brooks

Tulsa is very accustomed to playing the role of spoiler against the UK men’s soccer team. Last year, the Golden Hurricane defeated UK in the Conference USA final on penalty kicks, ending hopes of making the NCAA Tournament.

On Wednesday night, Tulsa continued to live up to its reputation, beating the Cats 1-0 in the closing minutes at the UK Soccer Complex.

After dropping two consecutive matches for the first time in over a year, losing their top-25 ranking in the process, and having yet to have a C-USA victory on its résumé, the Cats (7-4-0, 0-3-0) entered the game knowing they needed to build some momentum for the long road ahead.

“We needed something to get us going,” senior defender Barry Rice said. “Today was the perfect opportunity to do that.”

The first half was very sporadic as neither team was able to control the ball consistently because of fast turf, which forced both teams to put the ball in the air more than usual. Since the Cats have been in a scoring drought as of late, UK tried to play aggressive and created four scoring chances in the box in the first 45 minutes. Tulsa had two of its own.

In the 39th minute, both teams were ignited by an altercation at midfield between UK senior forward Marco dos Santos and Tulsa midfielder Joe Salem when both squads rushed to break up the fight. Moments later, Tulsa defender Chris Taylor forced a diving save from UK’s Dan Williams followed by a Matt Lodge try that brought about the same result from Golden Hurricane Andy Aguilar. But both teams jogged into the locker room in a 0-0 deadlock.

In the second half, both teams started to play the ball on the ground more. UK controlled the ball the majority of the half and managed to create seven box chances but was never able to hook up for a score.

“We dominated,” said Rice, who played the game with a cast on his right hand. “We outworked them and had great effort, but we never finished on our chances.”

With time winding down, the game looked like it was going to go into overtime. But Tulsa had another agenda. Forward Ashley McInnes crossed up Williams in the 87th minute, netting the game-winner.

“The defense had plenty of chances to clear the ball out of the box,” Rice said. “But, two or three mistakes later, they’re up.”

The last time UK lost three matches in a row was in the 2003 campaign.

“Our problem is not finishing chances,” Rice said. “I don’t know how we’re going to fix it, because we hit in practice. We just need to change our mentality.”