LACEY, Wash. -- The Montana State University Billings men's soccer team dropped a hard-fought 2-1 overtime decision Thursday evening to Saint Martin's University in both teams' Great Northwest Athletic Conference opener.

 

With the loss the Yellowjackets dropped to 2-3-0 overall this season and are 0-1-0 in the conference, while Saint Martin's improved to 2-3-0 on the year and 1-0-0 in the conference.

 

“Today was a really difficult day for us,” said head coach Dan McNally. “We were delayed for 50 minutes because the referees had not been assigned, which was difficult to be prepared for on a road trip. We then lost our forward (Garion Holian) to a nasty head injury in the first 10 minutes, which hurt us a lot, and then gave up two bad goals. Now we have to get ourselves together, learn from our mistakes and be ready to play Seattle Pacific on Saturday.”

 

The Yellowjackets quickly got on the board to start the game as Thomas Sheets shelved the ball into the top right corner from 15 yards out, just 50 seconds into the match. The goal was the fourth quickest to be scored in MSUB men's soccer history.

 

MSUB suffered the loss of Holian just over 10 minutes in as he went up for a header in the box and collided with the Saints keeper, taking a shot just over the eye.

 

The Saints scored the equalizer in the 22^nd minute as Paul Schmidtke scored off a throw in from the sideline.

 

The final goal of the match came in the first minute of overtime as Austin Kelley had a one on one situation with Jacket keeper Eoin Hurley and beat the freshman to end the match at the 90:43 mark.

 

Saint Martin's held a 14-10 edge in total shots and a 7-2 edge in corner kicks. Hurley made three of the Yellowjackets eight saves as the defense posted five in the match. Saints keeper J.J. Olson made seven saves in posting the victory.

 

The Yellowjackets will have a day off before taking on Seattle Pacific Saturday evening at 7 p.m., at SPU's Interbay Stadium.