AVE MARIA, Fla. (October 16, 2019) – Three second-half goals would not be enough for the Webber International University men's soccer team to come back from a 4-0 first-half deficit against Ave Maria University on Wednesday night under the lights in Ave Maria, Florida. In the end, the Warriors were defeated 6-3 by the Gyrenes, who earned their first victory of the season.

After the first goal by Ave Maria came only eight minutes into the action followed by three more goals within the first 36 minutes of play, all by four different Gyrenes, the Warriors finally got on the board with a goal by David Negrin Ruiz in the 46th minute.

It was the team-leading seventh goal of the year by Negrin Ruiz, a junior transfer from Spain.

Unfortunately, the Gyrenes did a great job of keeping the Warriors from putting together a stretch of consecutive goals and taking back the momentum as AMU's John Gokey scored his second goal of the night 10 minutes after Negrin Ruiz's score.

Then, after Mateo Fernandez Sassoni scored his third goal of the season in the 75th minute to make the score 5-2, AMU answered the Warriors' score again 10 minutes later on the second goal by Kensley Jean Baptiste, who also scored the first goal of the match.

Bruno Flores added his second goal of the season via a penalty kick in the 88th minute.

Webber is now 8-5 overall in 2019 and is 2-4 in The Sun Conference while Ave Maria picked up its first win of the year to improve to 1-10-1 overall and 1-4 in the conference. It was also the first home win for the Gyrenes over the Warriors in program history while the six goals for Ave Maria were a school record for goals in a conference match and for goals against an NAIA opponent.

It was the second time this season the Warriors have been beaten by a team without a win after Webber fell to Johnson & Wales University 2-1 back on October 5 in Babson Park, Florida.

After a week and a half off, next up for Webber men's soccer will be a tough road matchup against nationally-recognized Keiser University on Saturday, October 26, at 11 a.m. in West Palm Beach, Florida. The Seahawks of Keiser have been receiving votes in each of the five regular-season NAIA Men's Soccer Coaches' Top-25 polls so far in 2019.