Through 85 minutes of play on Martin Field, nothing had been decided between Wesleyan and Southwestern Assemblies of God. Both teams had let good scoring opportunities slip away, and though Wesleyan seemed to be controlling the ball more and more as the game progressed, they hadn’t put a strong shot on net for quite a while.

Then, in the 88th minute, just as it appeared overtime was imminent, Wesleyan freshman Miljan Pandurevic won possession of the ball only a few yards in front of the Lions’ goal. Almost falling as he reached to get a shot off around a defender, Miljan sent a slow roller just inside the right post. Lions’ keeper Hector Longoria, partially screened by his own man, got a late jump on the ball and could only watch as it rolled gently past his outstretched arms.

“Obviously, I’m glad we got the win,” said Wesleyan head coach Steve Jones, “we just needed to finish a few easy opportunities in the first half, and the game would have opened up in the second half. Any time you are dominating a game and not finishing your opportunities, you run the risk of giving up a bad goal due to frustration.

“Luckily, we held on and finished one at the end. I can’t complain too much, when you have as young of a team as we do, things like this are going to happen. I am proud of the group that we have put together in a two month time frame and it will only get better as time goes on.”

Wesleyan, with 20 shots on goal, was led by Pandurevic (5) and Nathan Mutchler (5). SAGU tallied only 4 shots on goal, led by Courtney Pugh with 2.

SAGU defender Corey Lucas was yellow-carded in the 73rd minute after he deliberately kicked the ball out of bounds in frustration over a non-call. Wesleyan freshman Chris Hamilton received a yellow card in the 82nd minute when an opponent fell hard to the ground after a missed tackle. Also receiving yellow cards were German Ventura (SAGU) and Travis Mauldin (Wesleyan).

Attendance for the home opener topped 100.