The No. 16 University of Redlands men's soccer team welcomed Occidental College to Farquhar Field for the final Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) game of the regular season on Saturday afternoon. Despite a 1-1 tie through regulation, Redlands converted the game-winning penalty kick early in the first overtime period to snag the hard-fought victory.
Prior to kick-off, the Bulldogs celebrated the impressive careers of their 11 seniors in forward Cameron Doody (Arvada, CO), midfielder Will MacFarlane (Park City, UT), forward Chase Boone (Beaverton, OR), midfielder Sergio Valencia (San Jose, CA), midfielder Alexander Knox (Seattle, WA), midfielder Casey ChubbFertal (Eugene, OR), forward Kamal Bilal (Chicago, IL), defender Ben Thompson (Spokane, WA), midfielder Anthony Royer (La Crescenta, CA), and goalkeepers John Melito (Keller, TX) and Josh Haskill (Lakewood, CA).
In a first half full of counterattacks, the teams fired off nearly the same number of shots, with Occidental owning six and Redlands earning five. Haskill was tested early in the contest with a slow-roller behind him but quickly recovered for the save in the 10th minute to keep the Tigers off the board. Redlands came right back, as Boone and junior forward Kayvon Parsa (West Hills, CA) had quality chances to put one through the posts.
In the 25th minute, Royer rocketed a shot from 30 yards out that nearly missed by hitting the near post.
On a counterattack in the 37th minute, Valencia slipped a through-ball to sophomore forward Antony Chonga (San Diego, CA), who one-touched it around a defender before blasting it to the bottom-right corner of the net for the 1-0 Redlands advantage.
Haskill came up big-time in the first stanza, saving all six of Occidental's shots on goal.
Through a physical second half, Occidental took advantage of a Redlands miscue to go one-on-one with Haskill, which resulted in the equalizer for the Tigers in the 70th minute.
Although the Maroon and Gray out-shot the Tigers, 4-1, in the last 20 minutes of the game, none were successful, resulting in a 1-1 deadlock through regulation.
After Occidental fired off a quality shot early in the extra period, Redlands successfully converted a penalty kick in the second minute to steal the win. Following a foul in the box, Chonga stepped up to the line and fired it past the diving Tiger goalkeeper for the golden-goal win.
With today's result, the Bulldogs finish the conference season with an undefeated record of 12-0-2 and an overall tally of 13-3-2. As the top seed of the SCIAC Postseason Tournament, Redlands hosts the semifinal round against fourth-seeded Pomona-Pitzer Colleges on Wednesday, November 1, at 7 p.m.
