St. Thomas soccer coach Glenn Caruso has seen a lot in his 17 seasons there, and in more than a decade before that.

Until the last two weeks, he had not twice seen his team’s defense clear the ball at their own goal line, only to watch the opposing team pick it up and run into the end zone for the touchdown.

Division II Sioux Falls defeated the Tommies 34-13 in last week’s season opener, a performance Caruso called “rude” in retrospect on Saturday.

A Northern Iowa team that defeated the transition Division I Tommies 44-3 three years ago also scored that way Saturday. This time, the Panthers, who play Nebraska and Hawaii over the next two weeks, scored the winning touchdown with less than three minutes left in their 17-10 comeback victory at O’Shaughnessy Stadium.

“I’ve been doing this for 29 seasons and I’ve been here a long time,” Caruso said. “Those are the opportunities. It’s happened to us once in the last 16 years and now twice in two weeks. Our goal-line defense, we get 11 guys to the ball. If we get the bad side of that, it is what it is. The process is good: the way we defend, the way we stop the ball, the way we hit it. Those are things we can control. I’m not going to spend time on things we can’t control, like how it bounces.

“The commitment to grow between weeks 1 and 2 was immense. If we’re willing to do that over the next 11, 12 weeks, we’ve got a chance to be a decent team.”

The Tommies followed up last week’s loss by playing aggressively from start to finish. They went for a first down on fourth down at the Northern Iowa 34-yard line and got stopped. They pulled off some trick plays that would lead to a long gain or a score. They blocked a punt — and got one blocked themselves.

They also missed two field goals from within 30 yards and then scored a 50-yarder for a 10-7 lead late in the third quarter after Caruso showed some faith in kicker Stephen Shagen.