Box Score  
FULTON, Mo. – While "moral victories" won't change a won-lost record, McMurry University's 3-2 setback at Westminster College might well have first-year head coach Tyler Tarango feeling good about what may be ahead for his youthful team.
 
The War Hawks (0-1) played the Bluejays (1-0) – an NCAA Division III playoff team in 2015 and pre-season favorite in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 2016 – tough in the season opener for both squads. McM challenged WC with a roster consisting of 14 true freshmen, four sophomores, two junior transfers and just two seniors, while the Bluejays returned 20 players (seven who had earned all-conference honors) from its 2015 playoff team.
 
McMurry also displayed the ability to generate an offensive threat in the season lid-lifter, something lacking last season. With a pair of goals in the opener, the multi-goal game gave McM something it accomplished just once during all of 2015 (that in a 3-2 overtime win against Louisiana College).
 
Tarango's young charges seemed to show some opening-night jitters, finding themselves down 2-0 midway through the opening period.
 
"I think a lot of our guys were nervous the first half and a little shocked by the physicality and speed of the college game," Tarango said. "But the second half I felt we dominated and really controlled the game. (Westminster) only had one good shot attempt in the second half and we saved it."
 
In the opening period, however, it was returning sophomore Josh Erwin who finally got McMurry on the board, 2-1, in the 24th minute.  In the 27th minute, the Bluejays would again extend their lead to two goals, making it the 3-1 score, as it remained until the intermission.
 
The two teams were relatively quiet in the early part of the second stanza. In the 70th minute, junior transfer Ethan Brown settled a rebound of a shot attempt and blasted the ball past WC goalie Ben Chester to narrow the gap to 3-2. For Brown – who came to McM from Wayland Baptist University – it was his first goal as a War Hawk.
 
Neither team was able to add to their totals in the final 20 minutes, for the 3-2 final score.
 
McM goalkeeper Alex Chavez was charged with all three WC goals. Chavez – a junior transfer from Mountain View J.C. - had three saves in his McMurry debut.