Ninth-ranked Azusa Pacific scored in the sixty-seventh minute to take a 1-0 lead over Westmont men’s soccer on Tuesday afternoon in Azusa. But, in the final minute of regulation, the Cougars evened the score with an own-goal, sending the game into overtime. Azusa Pacific prevailed, however, scoring in the fifth minute of overtime to claim at 2-1 victory.
“We played a reasonably solid game against a very good team,” said Westmont Head Coach Dave Wolf. “However, we didn’t have enough to really threaten them.”
Cito Soriano opened the scoring on a shot to the far post from ten feet out on the left side.
With his team struggling to keep the ball on the offensive side of the field, Wolf decided to bring in reinforcements.
“We had a group of players who came on toward the end of the game that really helped us fight our way back into the game,” noted the coach. “Two of those were freshmen Cole Timm and Isaac Thompkins. They came in off the bench and helped us get a little bit of an attack going.”
Westmont’s score came on a long thrown-in from Zach George when, as Coach Wolf put it, “We were throwing the kitchen sink forward.” Though no Warrior player could get a head on George’s throw-in, the Cougars obliged by scoring for the Warriors.
But the tie score did not last long. In the fifth minute of overtime, Soriano ended the game by collecting a loose ball in front of the net and scoring from five yards out.
With the loss, Westmont falls to 3-4 in Golden State Athletic Conference play and 5-6 overall. Azusa Pacific is now 13-2 overall and 6-2 in conference play.
The Warriors are currently in eighth place in the GSAC standings, the final place to qualify for the GSAC post-season tournament which begins the first week of November. Westmont has accumulated nine points in the standings (three for a win, one for a tie) and is two points behind seventh place Vanguard (6-5-3, 3-2-2 GSAC). The Warriors stand two games ahead of ninth place Point Loma Nazarene (3-9-1, 2-5-1 GSAC). Not only have the Warriors played one less game than the Point Loma Sea Lions, but they also possess the tie breaker as a result of defeating Point Loma last Saturday by a score of 3-1.
On Saturday, the Warriors will travel to Fullerton for a game against Hope International (5-7-3, 0-6-1 GSAC). Kick-off is at 2:30 p.m.
