KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Avila scored two highly unique goals early in the first half and then flashed some lockdown defense in the second half, leading the Eagles (2-4-0, 1-0 KCAC) to a 2-0 victory over Evangel (4-1-0, 0-1 KCAC) in the teams' first matchup as KCAC competitors on Wednesday afternoon at The Z.

With the victory Wednesday, Avila men's soccer ended a long inauspicious streak and made an important bit of team history: the win was Avila's first over a KCAC opponent at The Z since 2018, Avila's first year in the conference. The Eagles earned their first conference win of any kind since 2018 by defeating Kansas Wesleyan in Salina last season, but this year have finally successfully managed to defend their home field with a shutout victory, the first of those since Avila's 1-0 shutout of Kansas Christian last September in Kansas City.

A 2-0 scoreline is a fairly common one in soccer, but the path these teams took to get to that scoreline was about as unique as possible. Both of Avila's tallies came courtesy of own goals from Evangel – both of which were "scored" by the same Valor defender, remarkably enough – and the Eagles never truly registered a shot on goal outside of those two own goals, and they still won the game relatively handily. Evangel won the corner kick battle 9-0 and out-shot Avila 15-6 in the game, but the Valor never were never able to create a scoring chance good enough to get past the Eagle defense and goalkeeper Johnathan Fager on this day.

The uniqueness started less than three minutes into the ballgame when new Avila left back Johnathan Young fired in a throw-in from close to the Evangel box, and it bounced right off the head of centerback James Nuku and past goalkeeper Anthony Morales and into the net for the game's first goal.

Twenty minutes later, the Eagles struck again when Malcolm Goswell broke free on the left side goal line extended and chopped a cross back into the box. Nuku slid out to parry, but he ended up slicing the shot back across the goal front and past Morales once again for Evangel's second own goal, giving the Eagles a 2-0 lead.

In truth, the Eagles didn't have many high quality scoring chances the rest of the game, but, meanwhile, the defense was doing its part to make sure the Valor never had many chances to rally back from that uncharacteristic deficit. Top attacker Igor Ovcarevic tried to take the game into his own hands on multiple occasions, but Fager was up to the task every time, as he was against Caleb Kuchta, who broke in on goal in the second half for Evangel's best chance of the game, only to be turned aside by Fager.

The Eagles were rock solid defensively all game, led by a good performance in the midfield captained by Thomas Mikkelson, and good work throughout by the defense, including Young, David Kehring, Jesse Simpson and Damon Young, who played the full 90 at centerback for the home team. And of course, Fager was reliable as usual, finishing with a total of seven saves – the third straight game he's had at least that many – to earn his first clean sheet of the season.

Avila's 2-0 win over Evangel in the second game of Wednesday's doubleheader coupled with the 2-1 victory earned by the women's team in the opener gives the Avila soccer programs a piece of history: this is the first time both Avila soccer teams have won on the same day since 2018, Avila's first year in the KCAC. The Eagles swept both York and Bethany at different points that year in conference doubleheaders, and, five years later, the Eagles open up conference play with another long-awaited doubleheader sweep.

Up next, Avila will play its second straight home game to open up KCAC play this season when the Eagles welcome McPherson to The Z this Sunday, September 17. The women's game begins the doubleheader at 1 PM, with the men to follow at 3:30; admission to the games is free, and, as always, you can watch all the action on the Avila Sports Network with Tim Hackett and Max Williams on the call from Kansas City.