Kentucky men’s soccer continued a troubling trend Monday night: Allowing late goals that cost the Wildcats results.
On Sept. 2, UK allowed an 88th-minute equalizer to Virginia Tech that saw a home win turn into a 2-2 draw. Last Friday night, Kentucky allowed a 79th-minute winner to a top-10 ranked Wisconsin team that saw a valuable home draw, or potentially a win, turn into a defeat.
And on Monday night in front of a boisterous home crowd of 1,439 at the Wendell and Vickie Bell Soccer Complex, UK was dealt more late-game heartbreak, this time by the Wildcats’ biggest rival.
With just 53 seconds remaining in the annual rivalry showdown between No. 16 Kentucky and No. 15 Louisville, U of L’s Leon Kondic was played into the UK penalty box and sent a powerful right-footed blast with the outside of his foot into the top left corner of the net, evading the grasp of veteran UK goalkeeper Casper Mols and sending the visiting players and fans into pandemonium.
This was the first college goal for Kondic, a freshman midfielder from Slovenia.