WHEATON, Ill. — Ty Brunner scored a goal in each half while the defense collected its first clean sheet of the season as the Pacific Lutheran University men's soccer team outmuscled host Wheaton College 2-0 on Friday evening to open the Bob Baptista Invitational at Joe Bean Stadium.
It took just 15 minutes for the Lutes (2-1) to assert their authority with Brunner heading the ball to the left side of the net for the early 1-0 lead.
Misha Turchaninov provided the assist, his first point of the 2026 campaign. Brunner added an insurance goal in the 65th minute, scoring his third goal of the year off a feed from
Eric Martinez.Â
The host Thunder (1-3) ripped off five shots over teh final 25 minutes, including two on target but
Chris Jamrok and the defense didn't let anything by to preserve the shutout.
"It was a really strong performance on the road against a very good Wheaton team," said Head Coach
John Yorke.
"I loved everything about the way our team performed tonight. We were hard and competitive and did the little things that you need to do to win tough games on the road. It was an incredible team effort. Every field player came on and performed at a high level and it was just a great competitive performance on the road."
PLU outshot the Thunder 4-2 in the first half but was outshot by a 13-11 margin over the match as Wheaton failed to capitalize on an 11-7 advantage in second half attempts.
Chris Jamrok tallied his first career clean sheet, making six saves in 90 minutes of work. His counterpart, Luke McGuire, made two saves while allowing a pair of goals.Â
"There's still a lot of things that we can continue to improve on but the character and will we showed tonight is a great starting point for who we want to be as a team."
Pacific Lutheran closes out the tournament tomorrow at 4:30 p.m (Central) with a showdown against North Park University. It will be the Lutes' first meeting with the Vikings since the opening round of the 2019 NCAA Division III Tournament.Â
