NILES — Defense was the name of the game for the visiting Dowagiac soccer team in its season opener at Niles Monday night.

Led by senior Adrian Lee, the Chieftains limited the Vikings’ offense and came away with a 3-2 non-conference victory.

While Lee and the Dowagiac (1-0) defense was holding the Vikings to just four shots on goal, none of which reached goalkeeper Kelvyn Bravo for a save, senior Cristian Wilson was taking care of the offense for the Chieftains.

Wilson scored a goal in each half to help Dowagiac come away with the victory in a well-played match by both teams.

“No matter how many years it has been, when Dowagiac and Niles get together it is a battle,” said Dowagiac coach Mike Williams. “We have been playing all spring, so we have played like that and we had a scrimmage with three good teams.”

Williams said that getting Lee to take charge of the defense has been a work in progress.

“It has taken two years to get him to open his mouth and run that thing,” he said. “Now he runs it and you do not have to say anything to him. He has that confidence. We have confidence in him. Today was a good example of him running it and getting people on the right marks.”

Lee said he was nervous about being put in charge, but he is getting more comfortable with the responsibility.

“It was a little scary at first,” he said. “It makes me have to talk a lot and I really do not like talking that much. I feel bad when I yell at them, but I have to do it.”

Lee said the team got off to a bit of a slow start, but got better as the match went along.

“The first half was a little shaky, but then we tightened it up and got to our marks,” Lee said. “We were not used to playing with three forwards up top so we had to adjust to it.”

Niles (0-1) got on the scoreboard first as Kyle Bruckner scored the first of his two goals six minutes into the match.

It remained 1-0 Niles until Wilson used his left foot to strike the ball past the Vikings’ goalkeeper into the upper-left-hand corner of the goal in the 36th minute.

Dowagiac came out and struck quickly in the second half with Ethan Hannapel getting to the far post and scoring in the 48th minute before Wilson notched his second goal off an assist from Cole Weller in the 51st minute.

Bruckner capped the scoring in the 55th minute, but the Vikings would not get the equalizer as the Chieftain defense clamped down for the final 25 minutes of the match.

Dowagiac outshot Niles 18-4. Bravo did not have to make a save, while Drew Gourlay stopped nine shots to keep the Vikings within striking distance of the Chieftains.

“I was happy with the kids today,” said first-year Niles coach Abel Fonseca. “We have had a couple of training sessions, but this was our first real game-type action. We had some good things and some bad things, but we are going to learn from them.”

Dowagiac returns to the pitch today when it travels to Buchanan for a non-conference match starting at 5 p.m.

Niles hits the road to take on Sturgis at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday.