Men's soccer opens season with thrilling double overtime victory over Bluffton

DEFIANCE, Ohio - The Defiance College men's soccer team took the field for the first time since November 2, 2019, on Tuesday afternoon, defeating rival Bluffton in double-overtime on a goal scored by senior Jarren Casto.

"We definitely played like it was our first competitive game in over a year and our performance was more about effort and energy than quality today," said Defiance head coach Cory Bucur. "It was awesome to have the opportunity to coach the team against someone other than ourselves and to have a great crowd as well! Especially considering we opened up with our biggest rivals I thought we managed our emotions well and kept our composure when it mattered the most at the end."

Casto's goal brings his career total to 14 which ties him Benji Hughes ('07) for the sixth-most in program history. Casto netted five goals last season for the Yellow Jackets.

Sophomore Orry Killam got the win in net, posting a shutout with a pair of saves. Killam's biggest save of the game came early in the first half when he turned away a Bluffton penalty to keep the game scoreless. This is the third shutout of Killam's career.

The Yellow Jackets controlled the bulk of the offense in the match, outshooting the Beavers 13-6 including 4-1 in overtime. Defiance also drew seven corner kicks to Bluffton's two. Senior co-captains Bennett Pack and Nick Stifel each logged three shots apiece for Defiance while Noah Svanberg totaled two.

"I talked about it in our preseason preview that Orry was going to impress some people this year and this was a great way to start. The save was big but his ability to organize and then deal with the elements with his distribution put us in positions to be successful: Bucur said. "A big credit has to go to the backline as well. Nick put forward a man-of-the-match performance in his first college start and Carson Macklin and Jake Rygula were not far behind. Bennett did a great job minimizing any threat before it got to those three and displayed a true captain's performance."

Overall Bucur was impressed by his team's performance saying "Obviously the red card towards the second half allowed us to put some extra pressure on but we started strong and ended strong. If we could've put one of the early chances in we had it would've been a different game but credit to Bluffton for competing at a high level as well today. We looked fit and strong from start to end and as long as we improve on the quality on the ball I think we can be very successful this season. We will enjoy the win for the day and then our focus shifts to Franklin!"

The Yellow Jackets will be back in action on Saturday afternoon when they host Franklin at 3:30 pm.