DEKALB, Ill. -- A second minute goal helped propel No. 12 Utah Valley to a 3-0 victory over the Northern Illinois University men's soccer team on Sunday afternoon in the NIU/adidas Invitational at the NIU Soccer Complex.

"We had an off day," said NIU head coach Eric Luzzi. "We had an off day individually, we had an off day collectively. Not to make excuses for our guys, but these Friday-Sunday's are hard. We poured a lot into the game on Friday and it is difficult to get up, sometimes, for two games in 36 hours. That's not an excuse because Utah Valley had to do the same thing and they were pretty good today.

"I'm hoping that this one hurts, because it needs to, and my expectation is that will be a catalyst for us to clean some things up that we need to clean up. We have an extended period of time, 10 days before our next game, to clean up things and I am excited to get back to work with these guys."

Utah Valley (4-1) opened the scoring on the first chance of the contest as Karson Payton gave the Wolverines a 1-0 lead 87 seconds into the contest. Skyler Milne crossed the ball in from the left to Payton whose shot hit the right post and went in to give Utah Valley the early lead.

In the 12th minute, Milne whistled a shot from well outside the box that NIU junior goalkeeper Drew Donnally (Plainfield, Ill./Plainfield North) pushed around the post and out for a corner kick. Donnally finished the match with six saves.

NIU's first good chance of the match came five minutes later as sophomore Kevin Rodriguez (Pasadena, Texas/Deer Park) played in fellow sophomore Adrian Coardos (Evanston, Ill./Niles North) on the counterattack but Utah Valley goalkeeper Elliott Rubio was quick to come off his line, cut down the angle and make the save.

Two minutes later, senior Albert Levett (Southend-on-Sea, England/Belfairs High) had a look at goal, but he put his effort just wide right of goal.

Donnally came up with an excellent save in the 40th minute. Utah Valley played the ball quickly through to Payton one-on-one with the Huskie goalkeeper but Donnally made a tremendous save to keep the margin to just one heading to halftime.

Utah Valley doubled its lead in the 53rd minute on a header from Alex Neff. Following a Huskie foul, Aaron Meyer took a free kick for the Wolverines that found the head of Milne, he was able to flick a header on to Neff inside the six-yard box and Neff's header beat Donnally to give Utah Valley a 2-0 lead.

In the 55th minute, NIU (0-4-2) had its best chance of the match as a ball came all the way through the box to Coardos with time and space at the back post but his shot rang off the underside of the crossbar and stayed out.

Less than a minute later, the Wolverines hit the Huskies on the break for a third goal. Payton slipped a ball into the run of Aaron Caprio who unleashed a shot that beat a helpless Donnally in the 56th minute, giving Utah Valley a 3-0 lead.

Levett and junior Jerome Roche (Salon-de-Provence, France/Gardner-Webb) were named to the all-tournament team.

NIU will return to action on Wednesday, Sept. 21, when the Huskies travel to Milwaukee for the annual Lewang Trophy match against the Panthers.


NIU/adidas Invitational All-Tournament Team
Grant Stoneman, Loyola (MVP)
Elliot Collier, Loyola
Kyle Thomson, Loyola
Brody Kraussel, Loyola
Aaron Meyer, Utah Valley
Nic Harguindeguy, Utah Valley
Giovanny Vazquez, Utah Valley
Ben Ovetsky, Binghamton
Conrad Nowowiejsky, Binghamton
Jerome Roche, NIU
Albert Levett, NIU