Westmont Men’s Soccer suffered its first defeat of the year, falling 3-1 at Menlo (2-0-1) on Friday.
Statistically, the game looked to have been played evenly with Westmont firing off 15 shots and Menlo 12. But Westmont head coach Dave Wolf shared a different perspective.
“We looked pretty average for the first 75 minutes of the game,” said Wolf. “While the run of play and box score looked to be fairly even, the result was what we deserved. In our opener against Marymount, we had a horrific first 10 minutes of the game where they scored twice. Today, we had that 10 minute breakdown at the start of the second half.”
Menlo scored in the eighteenth minute on a goal be Andrew Cota assisted by Hugo Conchas. Westmont did not allow another goal in the first half and looked as though they would make a game of it.
“We had one ball go off the crossbar and two more go off the post. It was just one of those days,” said Wolf.
In the ninth minute of the second half, Menlo’s Alex Vukic scored to give Menlo a 2-0 lead. Less than two minutes later, Vukic assisted Eric Angell on another goal, putting The Oaks up 3-0.
“We were without Gustavo Hernandez,” said Wolf of his senior defensive player. “He injured his ankle in training and didn’t feel like he could play on it today. He is a pretty important piece for us. Today’s game was played on field turf, which is hard on the joints. The same is true for tomorrow’s game so I doubt that Gustavo will be available for us tomorrow either. The wiser thing to do is probably to hold him out, but we will see.”
Westmont’s goal, scored by junior midfielder Nana Akyen, came with less than four minutes to play in the game, giving him four goals in the first two games.
Tomorrow, the Warriors will drive a few more minutes up the 101 to take on Notre Dame de Namure in Belmont. Kick-off is slated for noon.
