One quick strike by the UC Davis Aggies on Sunday afternoon put the CSUN men’s soccer team in a hole.
The Aggies scored just 11 seconds into Sunday’s match and controlled much of the first 15 minutes of play, which resulted in another goal and held off a fierce charge from the Matadors for a 2-1 victory at Matador Soccer Field.
“I’m very disappointed at the start of the game,” head coach Terry Davila said. “You give up two goals like that, you deserve to lose.”
Two Aggie midfielders, Charles Lind and Ian Conklin, supplied the offense for UC Davis, with Lind the scorer and Conklin the passer. The two midfielders hooked up in the first minute when Conklin crossed a ball to Lind, who then headed the ball past junior goalkeeper Kevin Guppy to the left side. The two hooked up again 14 minutes later when Conklin crossed another ball into the box and this time, Lind used his foot to strike the ball past Guppy at the right far post.
The Matadors immediately tried to respond. In the 19th minute, sophomore forward Sunghyun Kim crossed a ball to junior midfielder Devin Deldo, but Deldo’s header instead clunked off the left post. Two minutes later, senior defender Sean Franklin attempted a shot near the top of the box, but Aggie goalkeeper Ryan McCowan deflected the shot enough that it went off the crossbar and back into play. The Matadors attempted a total of 12 shot in the first half.
CSUN finally got on the board two minutes into the second half. Senior midfielder Fergie Agwu sent his throw-in into the Aggie box and freshman forward Camilo Rojas headed a shot that beat McCowan to the left side to pull one back for the Matadors. Davis nearly got that goal back in the 55th minute when a Matador foul in its box gave Davis a penalty kick. Forward Sule Anibaba shot the ball right, but Guppy guessed correctly and deflected the ball back into play. The Matadors were game the rest of the half, but were unable to equalize before the final whistle.
“We’ve played good the whole season,” junior defender Matt Tracy said. “We’ve out-played every team, we just haven’t been able to put the ball in the back of the net.”
CSUN ended up out-shooting Davis 17-13, though on two of those shots were towards goal. CSUN also had more corner-kick opportunities than Davis (5-2) and committed six less fouls than Davis (I9-13). Guppy made six saves in goal.
CSUN stood at 5-5-6, 1-3-4 heading into its road match against the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Mustangs on Wednesday.
