JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (Oct. 18, 2025) - Soccer is a sport where a team can do everything right and never score, or a team can have one player four inches out of place and lose. 

ETSU has experienced plenty of both in 2025. 

The ETSU men's soccer team fell 3-2 to Mercer at Summers-Taylor Stadium on Saturday night after Mercer scored twice in the final nine minutes and led for 2:04 of total game time. Sergio Baguena and Noel Poole found the net for the Buccaneers (1-7-4, 1-2-0). 

ETSU got on the board in the 14th minute thanks to an Henrique Cruz cross floated low and straight to the top of the box for a waiting Baguena who casually swept the inside of his right boot through the ball into the right corner of the net for his first goal as a Buccaneer and his 27th in college soccer. 

The Bears (4-7-3, 2-0-1) answered almost immediately when Will Taylor sprung left back Eli Bannister for an explosive run down the left wing. With inches to spare before crossing the end line, Bannister whipped the ball into the box where Ehi Aimiuwu put the point of his right boot behind it and sent it rocketing across the goal mouth into the back-left corner for his fourth goal of the season. 

The Bucs took the lead again in the 55th after a well-measured cross high in the air by right back Khalifah Atolagbe found Poole completely unmarked at the back post for a simple header to score his second goal in four matches and his fifth point in SoCon play. Mercer pulled level again when Fernando Arteaga fired a low curling shot from the left side that forced a parry save out of Emil Holmberg, but the rebound fell right into the path of Junior Casillas' streaking run and he rifled it past a helpless Holmberg in the 82nd. 

The Bears took the lead for the first and only time in the match when Bannister came tearing through the box and made an acrobatic leap to get level with an Arteaga corner for his second goal of his freshman year leave ETSU on the wrong end of yet another heartbreaker. 

The Bucs outshot the Bears 17-15, but Mercer had 10 shots on goal to ETSU's six. Seven saves for Holmberg matches a season high. 

The loss coupled with other results sees ETSU shuffled down to fourth in the SoCon standings. The Bucs play their final scheduled home game next Friday, October 24, against fifth-place Wofford at 6:00pm. 

For more information on ETSU men's soccer, go to ETSUBucs.com.