CHICAGO – The UIC men's soccer team fell short in its final exhibition game Saturday night as it suffered a 3-1 loss to Loyola at the Loyola Soccer Park. Abel Guzman scored the lone goal for the Flames late in the game with the assist from Sasha Simon.
 
UIC produced 10 shots on the night with just two of the attempts reaching on goal, while the Ramblers took a mere five shots but had all of them on target. Seven players contributed to the shot total, with Max Todd, Jose Fuentes and Nestor Garcia garnering two apiece.
 
Andrew Putna played the complete game in goal and made two saves.
 
The night started off and looked to be in favor of the Flames as Fuentes put a shot on goal in the sixth minute and followed it with another attempt three minutes later that went wide. Todd capped the sequence with a chance in the 12th minute that also went wide before UIC was held without a shot until the 40th minute when Oscar Gonzalez went off target.
 
Loyola put the ball in the back of the net on its first shot of the game in the 16th minute as Brody Kraussel scored. Their next shot came in the 27th minute with a header off a corner kick that forced Putna to make the stop, as his final save of the night came 12 minutes later.
 
The Ramblers were not presented with many opportunities, but they made it count when it mattered as their two shots in the second half resulted in goals. The first was scored by Chase Wright in the 55th minute and then Alec Lasinski sealed it nine minutes later.
 
The Flames scatted four shots from Todd, Garcia (2) and Cristian Sanchez over the first 30 minutes of the second half, but all attempts were blocked.
 
In the 85th minute, UIC was positioned with a corner kick taken by Yuri Domiciano. The ball made its way around to Simon and was then dished off to Guzman, who ripped the shot from the top of the 18 into the back of the net. Simon would come up with the final shot of the game within 30 seconds of the goal being scored, but it went high.
 
The Flames will now begin preparations for the start of the regular season, which gets underway next weekend when the team travels to Spokane, Wash., to take on San Diego State (Friday) and Gonzaga (Sunday) in a tournament hosted by the Bulldogs.