#2 Saints Held to 1-1 Draw by Hurricanes

By Michael Alaimo

Friday, Oct 22 St. Augustine, Fla – The (8-2-5) Flagler College Saints hosted the (4-6-3) Georgia Southwestern Hurricanes at Saints field. The Friday night show included end-to-end action with plenty of shots on the net from both teams. Yet, the score ended 1-1, with both goalkeepers playing stellar.  

After a scoreless first half, the Saints broke the stalemate in the 56th minute when sophomore forward Henry Okenla found the net off a corner kick from sophomore midfielder Alex Alexandrou, marking Okenla’s fourth goal of the season. Okenla on his goal:  

“Alex put the ball in a really dangerous area, and I just had to make a connection and guide it into the back of the net. It was a great feeling to help the team get ahead.” Said Okenla. 

Alexandrou, has been one of Flagler's best weapons this season, putting up three goals and four assists so far this season. He expressed how this goal he assisted was exactly drawn up like they did in practice.  

“We’d worked on set pieces during the week, mostly lofting it to the back post for the big ones to head it, which is what I did in the previous corners in the game.” Alexandrou expressed. “As soon as we won that corner, I just focused on giving a different type of ball to keep the opposition guessing. I just whipped it into that zone, and Henry did the rest. It’s always nice when something you’ve trained shows up in the game.”  

Right after Okenla’s goal, Georgia Southwestern equalized in the 64th minute. Conference Top goal-scorer (9 goals), Axel-Ambrois Gravel, scored from Cesar Rubio‑Amaya’s assist.   

The Saints outshot the Hurricanes 13 to 8 (six to four shots on goal); however, they still could not find that go-ahead goal to break the tie. The Saints committed 12 fouls compared to the Hurricanes’ eight.  

Goalkeeper Dylan Beiermann made his collegiate debut for Flagler and recorded three saves, while Georgia South western's Nathan Grady made five saves for the Hurricanes. 

The Saint’s head coach, Thomas Coombes, expressed how he felt post-game: 

“Disappointed not to win the game, especially after taking the lead. With the standards and expectations, we have set for this program; we are not happy with the performance or the outcome. However, we try to take the positive parts of the game and learn from the negative moments.” Said Coombes. “We mentioned that although this is not the result, we wanted it not to define our season, and we need to regroup and turn our energy to recovering and getting ready for another big game on Saturday night.”  

The Saints look to come back with a win on senior night, when they face Saint Leo at home on Oct. 25th.