SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Two own goals and a penalty kick goal allowed for the men's soccer team to pick up their second SoCon victory Tuesday night, a 3-1 victory over VMI at Snyder Field.
 
Midfielder Connor Donohue provided Wofford the penalty kick goal in the 58th minute. A hard foul in the box on a VMI defender set up the try for Donohue. He nailed the kick past Keydet keeper Alex Guerra into the back right corner of the net for his fourth goal of the season, tying him for the team lead with forward Matthew Aurednik.
 
The Terriers (7-2-1, 2-1-0 SoCon) took an early 1-0 lead in the 26th minute. Donohue approached the net from the left side and attempted to cross the ball into the center to a streaking Aurednik. A VMI defender, however, cut the pass off and shot it into the net for an own goal.
 
The third goal for the Terriers also came on a VMI own goal in the 69th minute. Midfielder Will Puckett launched a free kick from the left side toward defender Kyle Nelson positioned in front of the net. A VMI defender got to the ball first and knocked it into the net, giving the Terriers a 3-0 lead.
 
VMI (0-11-0, 0-3-0 SoCon) did make a late run, as midfielder David Harpen launched a ball from near midfield into the top right corner of the net for his first goal of the season at the 74th minute. The Terrier defense held strong the rest of the match though to secure the victory.
 
"I wanted us to start fast tonight because we've had issues with that," head coach Ralph Polson said after the match. "At Mercer we started quick and I think tonight we did too. It was a weird game. We had a lot of opportunities in the first half. Their goalkeeper played great tonight as he always does. They kept fighting even when it was 3-0."
 
"A lot of guys got minutes tonight and there were still guys that we wanted to get in but just ran out of minutes," Polson said. "Everybody worked so hard. I thought Garrett played very well in net tonight. At the end of the day, it's a conference win. At 2-1 in the league, granted it's only three games in but it's still a good place to be."
 
Overall for the match, the Terriers outshot the Keydets 20-8 and took seven corner kicks without allowing the Keydets any corner attempts.
 
Terrier goalkeeper Garrett Closs earned the victory in net, playing all 90 minutes while saving three shots. Guerra took the loss in net for the Keydets, racking up seven saves in the match.
 
The win extends Wofford's winning streak at Snyder Field to 12 games dating back to the 2013 season. It is also the fourth time this season that Wofford has won a game when scoring three goals, moving their record in those matches to 4-0 for the season.
 
Coach Polson said the next challenge ahead of his team is going to be a big one when the team takes on Furman.
 
"A very good Furman team even though their results have been mixed," he said. "It's always a battle with them, and it will be Saturday night, so we had to get past this one. I told them in order to win a championship, you had to win games like this one. This was the most important game. We did what we had to. We'll continue to get better."
 
The Terriers next match is Saturday night, as the team travels down the road to play SoCon rival Furman at 7 pm at Stone Soccer Stadium.