Mexico boys soccer had an opportunity again to face its North Central Missouri Conference foe Marshall.

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The difference this time on Tuesday night at Chris Hotop Field was the Owls are the Class 2 defending state champions. The Bulldogs were defeated by the champions 6-1, allowing half of the goals in the latter half of the first half.

Head coach Bill Gleeson said Mexico (1-2, 0-2 NCMC) always is more amped up when it plays Marshall because of the conference history. It was good to see the Bulldogs avoid the mercy-rule loss or eight-goal deficits like they’ve experienced in their previous three losses to the Owls (2-0, 1-0 NCMC), so they were better but perhaps gassed.

“We were getting a little worn down and a little tired,” Gleeson said. “I subbed some of my guys out and some of theirs came in. It just kept dragging on and dragging on. We talked at halftime and just said, ‘We just need to pick it up in the second half and just have some fun.’”

Marshall is a physical team and Mexico was being “beat around pretty good,” Gleeson said, as the Bulldogs had to deal with a 4-0 halftime deficit. The Owls took a 3-0 lead in the 38th minute as a pass leaked through to set up the goal. In the final minute, another such pass turned into a cross pass and then a header into the net.

Gleeson said countering this offense was a focus in Mexico’s preparation, but it was easier said than done when executing the game plan.

“We really worked on our defensive formation of staying tight in,” Gleeson said. “We started drifting out of that in the late first half. They were getting us spread out, and we worked on practices before saying, ‘Make sure you stay in your lane and don’t get pushed out, don’t get pulled out and don’t get spread out.’ That’s what happened so they were getting a lot of those through balls.”

Mexico was able to mount some offense about 10 minutes deep into the second half as Marshall’s defense showed a glance of being undisciplined when fouling Brendan McKeown. After being awarded a penalty kick, McKeown made the most of it.

“The player got pushed and tripped at the same time and kind of sandwiched (Brendan) in there,” Gleeson said. “He has a phenomenal kick so he was able to put it in.”

Mexico faced its second district foe of the season on Thursday at Boonville (1-2) before playing at noon today against Chillicothe (1-1).