Men’s Soccer held number 12 ranked Old Dominion to one score for much of Saturday night’s game, but could not find a golden goal in double overtime, suffering a 2-1 loss.

With the loss, Florida Atlantic is in the midst of a 17 game winless streak (0-16-1) going back to last October. Even with that fact, head coach Kos Donev is still pleased with how his team performed against ODU.

“We didn’t get the result, so we can’t call it the best result,” he said. “But certainly, we can call it one of our better performances of the year.”

“Unfortunately, the game of soccer is the beauty and the beast. It’s beautiful and it’s ugly,” Donev said of the final score.

After surrendering a goal in the 23rd minute to Monarchs midfielder Cole Stringer on a set piece play, FAU found its answer in the second half.

Junior forward Elijah McDonald dribbled through ODU’s back line and put a shot in the back of the net to tie it at one in the 46th minute.

“When we put Elijah there, he was hungry,” Donev said of the junior’s second half performance. “He had a desire [to score]. He went from one gear to the next gear and he put us on the board where he gave us life.”

Later in the half, a second yellow card to junior defender Braxton Fuster in the 79th minute put the Owls at a 10-man disadvantage for the rest of the game.

The card was one of three for FAU during the game (McDonald and senior defender Michael Quinn were also carded), which saw both teams rack up a total of 39 fouls in the matchup.

“It was a physical game, there were some cheap fouls here and there, but they certainly did a good job of managing the entire match,” Donev said of the handling by the refs of the game’s contact.

Old Dominion did not receive a card during the match.

The game’s decisive goal came in the 105th minute, when Monarchs defender Garrett Walke put a shot on goal from outside the box that was out of the reach of junior goalkeeper Josh Nolan to give his team the win.

Nolan made seven saves in the match, while Monarchs goalkeeper Alex Tiesenhausen had three saves.

With the loss, the Owls fall to 0-8-1 on the year (0-3 C-USA), while Old Dominion improved to 6-1-1 (2-0-1 C-USA).

The Owls go on the road for their next match, facing South Carolina on Oct. 9 in their lone game of the week.

Ryan Lynch is the sports editor of the University Press. For tips regarding this or other articles, he can be contacted at [email protected] or on Twitter.