Westmont Men’s Soccer (5-9-1, 2-7-1 GSAC) played its last game of the season on Saturday and despite a 2-1 Golden State Athletic Conference loss to Vanguard (7-8-3, 5-3-2), the Warriors went out with their heads held high.
“They play so hard and competed well,” said Westmont head coach Dave Wolf, “It was important that they finish that way. I think you can see that they feel good about what they just did. I’m very pleased with that.”
Vanguard’s Kyle O’Brien started off the scoring in the twenty-sixth minute of the game. O’Brien dribbled through the Warrior defense and shot the ball into the lower left corner of the net.
The score remained 1-0 until senior Isaac Thompkins recorded the equalizer for the Warriors. Gerald Ben slotted the ball through the defense to Thompkins on the right side, Thompkins fired the ball past the keeper to record his first goal on the season and the seventh of his career.
The game winner for the Lions came just three and one-half minutes later. Sam Nicholson passed the ball from the right side to Edgar Hernandez who one-touched it over to Kevin Cornwall who completed the play.
As the seventh place team in the conference, the Warriors season came to an end. However, from the intensity of play from the team in the Maroon color jerseys, you would have thought Westmont was playing for a championship.
“I thought Gerald (Ben) played hard all night long,” said Wolf. “I am really pleased with Muhammad (Mehai) and Sebastian (Kent), who were playing in new positions with Marcos (Lopez) and Nana (Akyen) off.
“We have been asking ourselves (on the coaching staff) about Tanner (Wolf), if we could play him in a real game and we got a positive answer to that tonight,” continued Coach Wolf. “Sean Siemens has been arguably our best player over these last few weeks and showed it tonight. I was so pleased for Isaac who scored in his final game. Gustavo (Hernandez) was magnificent. I thought all of the players were just great.”
The game is the fourth in a row in which the Warriors have come up on the wrong side of a 2-1 score.
Ben finished the season as the Warriors leading goal scorer at 13 and point getter at 28 (two points for a goal, one for an assist). Akyen, who sat out tonight due to an injured hamstring, recorded eight goals and four assists to tally 20 points.
Goalkeeper Matthew McNab played every minute in goal for the Warriors, posting a goals against average of 1.83 and tallying 63 saves.
