BROWNWOOD, Texas – An early first-half goal turned out to be the difference as the East Texas Baptist University men's soccer team fell to host Howard Payne University by a 1-0 margin on Saturday afternoon at Citizens National Bank Soccer Field. The defeat brings ETBU to 2-11-0 overall and 2-4-0 in American Southwest Conference competition. With the victory, Howard Payne ups its overall record to 3-7-1 and 1-5-0 in ASC match play.

Only a second into the 11th minute, Howard Payne scored courtesy of a Tracer Moore goal. In the opening half alone, ETBU fired off 16 shots, including shots on-goal by Pablo Jaimes, Gustavo Vasquez, Hugo Orta, Brett Forbus, Matthew Argenbright, and Jordan Burke. In contrast, Howard Payne fired four shots in that same 45 minutes, but held that 1-0 advantage at the halftime break.

The second half featured eight shots by ETBU, while Howard Payne fired off seven shots. The final 45 minutes saw Argenbright, David Jackson, Forbus and Jose Vega each rip a shot on-goal, but ETBU could not find the back of the net. In goal for ETBU, Juan Perales made four saves in 88-plus minutes before giving way to Ryan Hammond. Between the posts for Howard Payne, Allan Chehadi stopped 14 shots.

ETBU is back in action on Friday when it hosts University of Mary Hardin-Baylor at 3 p.m.