Looking Back at the 2025 Men's Soccer Season

CARLINVILLE, IL – Blackburn College Athletics continues looking at the 2025-26 season by looking at the 2025 men's soccer season.

The 2025 season saw the men's soccer team improve offensively as they finished with more goals, shots and assists while also posting the most wins since the 2021 season.

The Beavers finished the year with 28 goals and 20 assists while taking 264 shots. The also improved defensively as they allowed fewer goals, fewer shots and fewer assists than the previous season.

Sophomore Grant Eugea led the team with six goals and four assists while freshman Nathan Soto posted five goals and six assists as both finished with 16 points on the season.

Sophomore Cristian Cazares added three goals and assist. Senior Henry Ibarguen-Londono, sophomore Brayden Smith, and freshman Axel Gutierrez all notched two goals each. Sophomores Gavin Norwood, Corbin Bochinski, Byron McNeil and Johnny Perla, plus freshmen Antonio Baca, Kendrik Troutt, Abner Portillo and Adrian Castillo all added a goal as well.

Freshmen Abner Portillo and Adrian Castillo both tallied two assists, with sophomore Gavin Norwood, Corbin Bochinski, freshman Salvador Paz, plus Smith, Ibarguen-Londono and Cazares all finishing the year with an assist.

As a team, BC finished tied for third in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference for shots and corner kicks taken. Soto was tied for fourth in assists and joined Eugea among the league's top ten for shots.

The season began in Iowa where they bounced back from a tough opening loss to defeat Buena Vista University 1-0 for their first win when Smith scored in the 81^st minute to win the match.

Blackburn won the next two matches as well, defeating Concordia University Chicago 3-1, and the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy 2-1. Against CUC, Eugea answered an early Cougar goal with two of his own before halftime and Soto added a third early in the second half. At UHSP, Eugea got on the board early and Portillo answered a late UHSP goal in the 77^th minute to help give the Beavers victory for their third win of the year.

After falling to regional power Illinois Wesleyan University, BC rebounded with a 7-0 victory over Spurgeon College. The seven goals were the most in a game since the COVID season of 2021. Eugea scored twice while Smith, Soto, Cazares, Troutt, and Bochinski also scored goals.

In SLIAC play, Blackburn posted a 1-1 tie with Lyon. Perla tied the game in the 83^rd minute with a penalty kick goal that answered a Scot goal scored in the 49^th minute.

During the team's final road trip of the year, the Beavers scored two first half goals and added two more early in the second half which proved to much for MUW to overcome to give BC the 4-2 victory. Soto had two goals in the match while Ibarguen-Londono and Cristian

Soto and Perla earned All-Conference recognition as Perla earned All-SLIAC Second Team and Soto was placed on the Third Team. Senior Landan Tribble was named to the All Sportsmanship Team.