TURLOCK — Well, it was another overtime match for the Stanislaus State men's soccer team. This time, though, the Warriors earned a hard-fought draw as they played to Cal State San Marcos to a 2-2 score in the team's home finale.
With a pair of penalty kick goals by
Matthew Waldron, the Warriors finally got a positive result in these overtime, one-goal conference games. This season overall, the Warriors have been in 10 one-goal contests and now eight overtime matches. They are now, 1-8-1 in one-goal decisions while posting a 1-4-4 mark in OT affairs.
Stanislaus State (2-10-4, 0-9-1) finally earns a point in the CCAA standings headling into the final weekend of play as the Warriors travel to face Cal State Monterey Bay and San Francisco State to wrap-up the rebuilding year.
On Sunday, as the Warriors celebrated senior day with five seniors —
Willie Gomez,
Jaime Ceja,
Manny Villegas,
Joshua Jacobs and
Jose Acosta — played on the perfect home pitch for the last time, they provided another solid effort but a lot of bad luck.
At least a half dozen tremendous scoring opportunities went just wide or just high and a few other chances were nicely saved by CSUSM (5-4-4, 4-2-4 CCAA) goalkeeper Justin Tesar.
After the Cougars go up 1-0 after a Richard Flores score in the 13th minute, the Warriors were awarded a penalty kick when Villegas was shoved in the back on a header try. Waldron converted the PK opportunity to even the score.
In the second half, trailing 2-1, Waldron sent in the equalizer on another penalty kick attempt. This time, Tesar tripped up a Warrior attacker on a loose ball in front of the net to get the yellow card and the PK.
In all, the Warriors out-shot the Cougars 23-11 with eight shots on goal including the two penalty kicks. Stan State also had nine corner kicks to CSUSM's three.
Tomas Zajfert had a nice effort on the day with two saves