Wabash overcame an early one-goal deficit in its Sunday soccer match at Capital University, but the host Crusaders took advantage of a man advantage in the final 36 minutes to hand the Little Giants a 4-3 loss.
 
Wabash (1-1) scored in the first three minutes of the match when Kyle Holmer took a pass from Jacques Boulais and tallied his first goal of the season. Capital (1-0) responded with a pair of goals over the next 19 minutes to move in front 2-1. Daniel Bundschuh scored off a pass from Greg Knox to even the score at 1-1 in the seventh minute. Knox provided another assist in the 19th minute when he found Chewy Gordon with a pass for the go-ahead goal for Capital.
 
The Little Giants rallied for two more goals in the first period to take the halftime lead. Michael Tanchevski notched his second goal of the season in the 38th minute, collecting a pass from Justin Kopp who provided his second assist of the year. With the score tied at 2-2, Wabash regained the lead on an unassisted goal by freshman Timothy Herring in the 42nd minute to take a 3-2 advantage into the halftime break. Herring's goal came off a free kick restart for his second of the season.
 
The Little Giant held the lead until Bundschuh found the back of the net once again, this time in the 49th minute to even the score at 3-3. Six minutes later Wabash freshman Cristian Aleman was issued a red card, putting the Little Giants down a man for the remainder of the match. The Crusaders took advantage in the 79th minute when Knox took a corner kick and delivered the ball to Gordon for his second goal of the match and the eventual game winner.
 
"It was a wild match against a very good Capital team that went to the NCAA national tournament last year," Wabash head coach Chris Keller said. "There was a lot of back and forth with physical play. I was a little disappointed that we gave away goals on set pieces, but we also scored some great goals today. We were very unlucky to have a goal disallowed and then to get a straight red card from what seemed to be a good tackle that sent us down a man with the game tied at 3-3. I was really proud of the way the guys played short-handed. Overall it's a good sign moving forward with a young team. It was a valiant effort by the guys. They worked hard and battled through some adversity. It was a solid performance, just an unlucky result."
 
Capital put up 13 shots with nine shots on goal compared to seven total shots for Wabash. All three attempts on goal beat the Capital goalkeeper for goals. Chad Wunderlich made five saves in net for Wabash.
 
The Little Giants travel to Earlham College Wednesday afternoon for a 5 p.m. match before returning home to serve as the host school for the Robbie Dreher Classic Saturday and Sunday, September 8-9.