MARION, Ind. -- After some early setbacks in Mid-Central College Conference play, Indiana Wesleyan University men's soccer has rebounded quite nicely as Wednesday nights' 2-0 victory over visiting Marian (Ind.) University was the third straight win for IWU.

"Since our letdown week against Grace and Huntington, the sense of urgency and the heart, desire, and focus have dramatically increased in our training sessions," said Indiana Wesleyan head coach Mark Castro. "We've seen that change in our results against Mount Vernon, Goshen and tonight against Marian."

Indiana Wesleyan dropped back-to-back one goal losses to Grace and Huntington to fall to 1-2-0 in MCC competition. But the resulting three match win streak ups the Wildcat record to 4-2-0 in the conference which puts IWU right in the thick of the MCC battle. Indiana Wesleyan is currently third and is right on the heels of the conference leaders.

The Wildcats controlled play throughout the night on Tuesday and finally capitalized with a goal in the 40th minute. Senior forward Zach Grantham was led by sophomore midfielder Geoff Bowman to a one on one with the Marian keeper. Grantham calmly put the shot over the keeper for the 1-0 advantage.

"It's a matter of that guy playing that ball in the attacking third to set the guy up for the goal," stated Castro. "And Geoff Bowman did that. In the first half he sent that ball over the top and Zach (Grantham) ran on to it. All Zach had to look at was the goal, see where the keeper was coming out, pick a spot and he went to the back post. It was great."

Indiana Wesleyan continued its offensive pressure early in the second half, which resulted in a 2-0 lead in the 54th minute. Bowman sent a ball towards net where senior midfielder Ross Tanzer was waiting to head the ball into the goal.

"Geoff Bowman has been playing great balls, very dangerous balls, into the box off of corners and set pieces," continued Castro. "Ross Tanzer just knows how to head the ball. He out jumped the defender and finds the back of the net."

IWU outshot Marian 16-4 on the evening and put seven shots on net compared to one for Marian.

"We felt pretty strong," continued Castro. "Defensively we definitely had goals of a home shutout. We did that but we also limited them to just one shot and (Dylan) McCauley came up with just a tremendous save. Defensively things are falling into place for us. We're feeling pretty comfortable with our back line. I thought Ben Stoddard did an exceptional job of the defensive organization but also helping us decide how we were going to attack."

With the win the Wildcats improve to 10-5-0 overall and the Knights drop to 7-7-0.

"Pretty good performance tonight," concluded Castro. "For the most part I'm pretty pleased."

Indiana Wesleyan returns to the pitch for their final regular season road match at 7 p.m. on Saturday, October 15 at Bethel (Ind.) College in Mishawaka, Indiana. Bethel is in second place in the MCC and currently sits just one game ahead of IWU.