After a long offseason, the highly anticipated Georgia Southern men’s soccer season finally kicked off this past weekend as the team traveled to Charleston to compete in the Aaron Olitsky Tournament.

The Eagles lost two 1-0 battles against Monmouth and Furman.

The first game of the tournament for the Eagles was Friday night against the Monmouth Hawks. Georgia Southern came out firing as Adam Abdelloui had two first half shots.

The best chance of the first half came in the 42nd minute with junior midfielder Javier Carbonell getting clever and shifting the ball towards the goal, but a quick defensive move from a Monmouth defender kept the score tied at 0 at the half.

This same aggressive offensive scheme continued for both teams in the second. The lone goal of the evening came in the 69th minute from Monmouth’s Colin Stripling off of a free kick in front of the box.

A valiant yet disappointing result from the Eagles, but they looked ahead to Sunday’s match against Furman.

Furman was coming off a Friday night win over College of Charleston and the Eagles weren’t fazed at all. GSU got the offense started early with senior forward Blake Wilson having a solid strike that went just wide in the seventh minute.

Furman quickly responded to this start with a goal by freshman forward Cole McLagan coming just two minutes after Wilson’s strike. The Eagles continued to hang with the Paladins the rest of the afternoon, but were unable to produce an equalizer.

Furman won the shots battle 7-6, while Robert Flott picked up three saves compared to Hale’s lone save.

Georgia Southern will travel to North Florida this Friday night before coming to Erk Park on the home opener against Clemson on Labor Day.