Riverside, Calif. - With two second half goals, the Golden Eagles men's soccer team jumped into the win column to even their conference record at 1-1 (1-5-1 overall). Alfonso Gonzalez and Israel Vasquez scored goals for La Sierra. Both goals came on assists from Manuel Zendejas and Myton McDonald, respectively.
The Golden Eagles controlled play for the majority of the first half, but couldn't quite find the back of the net. On one opportunity, Matthew Beck the Pioneers goalkeeper came out to challenge leaving the goal unprotected but the wide open shot sailed just wide of the right post.
Although the Golden Eagles controlled play for the most part, the Pioneers did threaten on a couple of occasions to score their first goal of the season. On a play that could have given the Pioneers an enormous amount of momentum, goalkeeper Nick Putrasahan stopped a point blank shot by Pacific Union's Bila Kintaudi with 11 minutes remaining in the first half of play.
The second half resembled the first half with the Golden Eagles spending most of the time on the attack. They finally exposed a crack in the Pioneers defense when Zendejas found Gonzalez streaking down the right, who collected the pass and squeezed it by the Pioneers goalkeeper and into the net, in the 56th minute.
La Sierra added an insurance goal in the 69th minute when McDonald lobbed a pass to Vasquez who tracked it down in front of the Pioneers goal and put it away for his second goal of the season.
The Golden Eagles outshot the Pioneers 20-4 for the match, but only had a 6-3 advantage in shots on goal. Vasquez led the team with six total shots (2 SOG), while Brandon Chavez added four shots (1 SOG) in the match.
The men's soccer team will now look to carry this momentum on to the road when they travel to Northern California next week for two Cal Pac matches at CSU Maritime (Thursday) and Sierra Nevada College (Sunday). The team will return home on Thursday, October 6, when they play host to Soka University in a Cal Pac match.
