A trip to UW-Platteville saw the Warhawks win the Shaymus Guinn Cup Saturday, Sept. 28. The Men’s Soccer Team also saw their first loss come at Luther College’s home field on Tuesday, Sept. 24. This result ended the Warhawks winning streak at 17 straight without a loss.

Heading to Decorah, Iowa, the unranked Warhawks (11-1-1) took on the eighth ranked Luther College Norseman sitting at 5-1-1 on the season. Senior Garrett Morgando scored the first goal in the 12th minute and the Norseman answered in 14’to go into the half tied 1-1.

Heading into the second half Luther college came out scoring 2 goals and by the 53rd minute  Warhawks trailed 1-3. Junior Brad Ludwig’s corner kick for a goal was called back after the team was offsides, a tough break as it would have changed the outcome of the game.  later in the Second half, warhawks attempted to rally, Sophomore Jalen Holley was able to lift the team’s morale with a header to narrow the gap 2-3.

Heading into the last seconds,the Warhawks attempted a corner kick, but fell short. It was a tough way to lose for a team that has proven to be so resilient. Although this was their first ranked matchup of the season, Platteville proved to be a tough matchup heading into Pioneer Stadium on Saturday the 29th.

This contest saw more than a tally in the win column at stake.  The Warhawks and UW- Platteville Pioneers faced off to see who would take home the Shaymus Guinn Cup, a Trophy all too familiar to head coach Tony Guinn.  He played collegiately for Platteville and the trophy is named after his late son Shaymus, who lost his battle with cancer.

Shaymus Guinn, Tony’s son, passed away in December 2012 at the age of 11 after a five-year battle against E-wing Sarcoma and Chemo-induced acute lymphatic leukemia. ”We play for the Shaymus cup, I am confident in my guys we are a family, we will rally around each other, I love these guys,” said Tony Guinn heading into the emotional matchup.

Coach Guinn got his Warhawks started hot in the contest. They put six shots on goal in the first 22 minutes. Although no one was able to get any goals in, the Warhawks continued their onslaught, totaling 9 goal attempts. However, they couldn’t get the ball in the back of the net, and regulation ended 0-0.

With 9 goal attempts coming from Platteville, the Warhawk defense had to be in their defensive shell.  The goal finally came in the 101st minute by Senior Trevor Johson.

“We had a long throw-in, and I took a leap of faith and trusted myself  and put the ball to the bottom corner,” said Mordango.”The next thing I knew we were celebrating. It happened so fast.” A goal that ultimately put Whitewater in position to take home the Shaymus Guinn Cup making their coach and city proud.

Capitan Taylor Ortiz said ”We used the metaphor of a boxing match. You can’t just go down. You have to punch back. I think we all punched back. We didn’t want to take anything from anyone, we wanted to strike back and strike back hard.”

Although the winning streak is over, an important win came late Saturday night at Pioneer Stadium. “This is the biggest game of the year, not only for NCAA qualifying, but it’s more for our coach because of his son.” said Mordango.” That’s what the game is all about really. We want to win that for Shaymus. I’m happy with the team effort and for Coach Guinn.”

After such an uplifting win, the team is feeling optimistic,”Going into this game, we had a good streak going. We wanted to get back on track. We knew the importance of this game. Getting the win with Coach Guinn and turning it back around was huge.” Said Ortiz,”This win makes a statement for North Region and for the season moving forward.”

On the horizon, look for the Warhawks to come up against Augustana, Oct. 1 at 7 p.m. at Fiskum Field.