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Cougar Soccer Plays Azusa Pacific Tough, but
Falls in Both Games |
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Box Score (Women) Box Score (Men) On Friday, the Cougar men’s and women’s soccer squads traveled up to Azusa to play highly-ranked Azusa Pacific. While CSUSM put up a good fight in both games, neither of them ended in CSUSM’s favor, with the men losing to #5 Azusa 4-2 and the women losing just 1-0 to the #1 ranked team in the nation. For the Cougar women, Friday’s outcome is yet another in a string of bittersweet results. On one hand, the team is playing excellent soccer, keeping competitive against some very good teams and putting themselves in a spot to win. But these performances haven’t translated into victories, as the squad now sits at 1-4-1 on the year. Still, the Cougar women went toe-to-toe with #1 Azusa, and didn’t appear intimidated at all. CSUSM played its best defensive game of the year, stifling Azusa’s vaunted attack for the majority of the game. With the game a scoreless tie in the 67th minute, Azusa finally broke through when Theresa Broad got behind CSUSM’s defense, dribble around keeper Jane Drury, and knock a shot into the empty net. The Cougar women were unable to equalize, but the team still played a very strong 90 minutes of soccer, and gave the top team in the NAIA quite a scare. On the men’s side, the Cougars didn’t provide quite the scare, but they didn’t go down without a fight. Azusa’s Steven Lenhart put the Cougars in an early 1-0 deficit in the 13th minute, as he touched a cross into the net in the 13th minute. CSUSM would respond quickly. In the 16th minute, midfielder Felix Gonzalez-Dalmas hit a cross of his own that fellow midfielder Chris Wyatt headed into the back of the net. The 1-1 score would hold through halftime. Azusa would re-take the lead in the 55th minute, as Lenhart headed in a cross from Sven Cheek. Just over a minute later, Lenhart stole a ball in the box and drilled it home for his third goal of the game. But once again the Cougars would respond, as Bradley Seidenglanz knocked a pretty pass through the defense, finding Gonzalez-Dalmas, who slid his shot under the keeper to cut the lead to 3-2. Cougar keeper Tashi Nakinishi kept the team in the game with a save on a penalty kick in the 79th minute, but in the final few minute Lenhart would close out the game with his fourth goal of the contest. The 4-2 loss drops the Cougar men to a disappointing 2-5 on the season. Both CSUSM teams will be in action on Saturday, as the women will take on Concordia and the men will go against Westmont.
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