Soul falls 18-10 on road
The Chicago Soul was looking for its third consecutive victory, but after failing to capitalize on opportunities, the squad dropped an 18-10 decision to the Wichita Wings at the Hartman Arena.
Wichita’s Frederico Moojen finished with 4 goals and 9 points.
The Soul got off to a rough start, allowing the Wings 10 points to the their 4 in the first half.
Wichita opened up the night’s scoring on a goal by Miguel Ferrer. Chicago quickly retaliated on a goal by Carlos Muñoz, tying the game at 2-2.
The Wings then took charge as Moojen managed to record a hat trick after scoring 3 consecutive goals for Wichita, making it an 8-2 Soul deficit.
Ferrer scored again to extend the Wings’ lead to 10-2 before Muñoz was able to find the net again on a restart opportunity, allowing the Soul to reduce the deficit to 10-4 in the closing minutes of the first half.
The Soul didn’t seem to have better luck in the second half. The Wings’ Tiguinho opened the second-half scoring, and Wichita took a 12-4 lead.
Chicago appeared to gain a bit of momentum when Matthew Stewart buried a shot, cutting Wichita’s advantage in half.
Eric Lukin followed up shortly with a goal of his own to close the gap to 12-8, but the Wings responded quickly as Moojen scored his fourth goal of the night. Andrew Hoxie added a goal to bring Wichita up to a 16-8 advantage heading into the final period of play.
Hoxie scored again in the opening minutes of the fourth to put the Wings on top 18-8. The Soul tried to swing the momentum in its favor by making several shot attempts but was unable to finish.
Bato Radoncic finally managed to net one in with two minutes remaining, but Chicago simply could not catch up in time and was forced to pick up a loss on the road.
“It was definitely a frustrating loss, especially to lose by that big of a margin,” Soul coach Novi Marojevic said. “We had a lot of chances, but we just didn’t have the killer instinct to score tonight.
“We struggled running to the ball and putting chances away. We also fell apart defensively, and we have to improve on that.”
The Soul return home to face the Syracuse Silver Knights on Friday at the Sears Centre Arena. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m.