EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. – Freshman Brett Lane scored his first collegiate goal Tuesday as SIUE men's soccer defeated Omaha 3-2 at Korte Stadium.

Lane headed the ball in the upper right of the goal off a well-placed corner kick from Kevin Stoll at 64:26.

"That was good to see off the restart. Brett got up and snapped it down which was well done by him," said SIUE Head Coach Kevin Kalish.

SIUE improved to an 8-3 record and has the most wins in the Missouri Valley Conference heading into its first league contest Saturday at Creighton. The Cougars will take on the Bluejays in Omaha, Neb., in a 7 p.m. contest.

"It was a game of a lot of different emotions," Kalish said of Tuesday's match. "There were different situations that maybe went against us, and I thought we responded well and found a way to win."

The first half turned out to be an offensive explosion with the two teams trading goals.

Peter Kelly scored SIUE's first goal of the night just 3:38 into the game. He scored from six yards after being fed a cross by Devon Newport from the left side.

Omaha, which dropped to 3-5-1, answered with a quick goal by Craig Buettner at 5:34 following a fortunate deflection, evening the score at 1-1.

Kelly would put the Cougars ahead again 2-1 at the 33:30 mark of the first half when his shot off a combination with Ryan Bauer found the net.

"Peter played well tonight," Kalish said. "His two finishes were quite good. He is quite dangerous."

The Mavericks tied the game at 2-2 when Logan Mendez connected on a penalty kick at 36:55.

"UNO made it a little bit difficult on us at times. Give them credit. But overall we were pleased to get the result," Kalish said.

Goalkeeper John Berner made a victorious return to the SIUE lineup after being idle due to injury for the last three weeks. He recorded two saves.

"Now it's a matter of training the next couple days and getting ready for Creighton."