The Austin boys soccer team ran into a motivated Como Park squad and it couldn’t hold off the Cougars in a 2-1 loss at Art Hass Stadium Saturday.

Como played the final 30 minutes of the game one player short after their keeper Emmanuel Motions Lopez was red carded and Austin’s Julio Herandez put in a penalty kick to put the Packers up 1-0, but the Bears found their second wind at that point.

Como controlled the possession for much of the second half and it scored two goals in a span of eight minutes to grab the win. Como’s Abdulaziz Ahmed tied the game up at 1-1 when he punched one in near the net with 8:39 left and Abdihamid Mire scored the game-winner when he snuck past Austin keeper Casey Berg and scored with 45 seconds left.

“You’ve got to give Como Park a lot of credit. They were a man down and they kept with at it,” Austin head coach Jens Levisen said. “They were a man down and they knew they had to dig in and keep pushing harder. If you watched the second half, unless you counted, you wouldn’t have known they were a man down.”

Austin had nine shots in the loss and Berg finished with six saves. While the Packers were feeling down from the loss, they know there is a lot of soccer still to be played this fall.

“It was the first game of the season. It’s not a time to point fingers or re-think everything,” Levisen said. “We can all think about what we need to improve on and we all agreed there are things we need to work on. We’ll start pulling it together. That’s not a problem.”