Garden City men stand tall in one-goal defeat

By Mike Pilosof

Garden City, KS-The old company line that says that a match could have gone either way epitomizes Garden City's early-season struggles.

On Thursday, the Broncbusters suffered their second-straight one-goal defeat thanks to Ignacio Ruiz who put home the game winner with three minutes to spare, giving Cloud County a 2-1 victory over Garden City.

"I thought we played really well," assistant coach Nick Torres said. "We had the lead, and lost it, and we still fought."

Garden City (0-4, 0-1) struck first when Lyle Lakey's kick found the back of the net in the 25^th minute for a 1-0 advantage.

The score stayed that way until the 70^th minute when Cloud County's Vitor Leitao pushed across the equalizer. On the play, Garden City failed to clear an errant header in the box, resulting in a 1-1 tie.

Then the backbreaking part.

Vs. Northeastern on Monday, the Broncbusters saw their opponent score the winning goal in the final three minutes. Three days later, the same nightmare occurred again, and this time it was Ruiz, who knocked in the final goal.

"It's definitely a hard pill to swallow," Torres said. "That was a great match, and our guys are right there. We've had some bad luck so far."

Cloud County, who is receiving votes in the polls, improved to 2-1 overall and 1-0 in the conference. Meantime the Broncbusters are back home Saturday vs. Lamarie at 3 p.m.