REDLANDS, Calif. – The University of Redlands Men's Soccer team earned a hard-fought 2-1 home victory against Occidental College Wednesday night.
The Maroon and Grey pick up a crucial three points within the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) standings as they look to host a home game in the SCIAC Tournament. The Bulldogs currently hold a one-point lead over Chapman University for second place with both teams having played ten matches.
Redlands has won two in a row and improved to 11-2-1, 7-2-1 SCIAC.
The Bulldogs opened the scoring in the 15th minute with Collin ChubbFertal (Eugene, OR) adding his ninth goal of the season. Steve Acuña (Pico Rivera, CA) and Ethan Kovach (Las Vegas, NV) double-teamed the Occidental College right back and stole the ball away from him at midfield. Kovach dribbled down the flank, beat a defender, and crossed a nice ball on the ground to ChubbFertal's left foot. He then struck it right away from the six-yard box seeing the Oxy keeper get a hand on it, but it bounced on the crease and into the goal.
U of R continued the pressure after the goal by forcing a pair of saves off another ChubbFertal shot and a Joseph Parra (West Covina, Calif.) strike in the 17th and 18th minutes.
In the 30th minute, Skylar Darwen (Los Angeles, Calif.) forced another stop from Scott Drazan that earned the Bulldogs a corner. Jonathan Cheung (Hong Kong, China) took the ensuing kick and found senior Peyton Menti (Seattle, Wash.) open on the back post, but his header would miss wide right.
Occidental managed to tie things up in the 35th minute coming off a corner kick to the back post. It came in and hit off of Mikey Flota's (West Covina, CA) thigh, which then hit off of Oxy forward Ben Tucker on the goal-line. He then tapped it with his hand and it went into the goal.
But in the 41st minute, junior Quinn Richards (San Clemente, Calif.) scored what would become the eventual game-winner.
Cheung curled in a free-kick from the right sideline that found the feet of Arian Mogharei (Hayward, Calif.). Mogharei took a good first touch and slipped a cheeky pass to Richards in the box. Richards then took his own touch to his right and ripped his shot low to the near post from 14-yards out.
In the 65th minute, Kovach came close to making it 3-1 when he hit the far post. He had the keeper beat but couldn't sneak it inside keeping the game at 2-1.
Down the stretch, the defensive unit stood tall limiting the Tigers to just three shots as UR would hold on for the home victory.
Seth Lawrence (Redlands, CA) played the full 90 minutes between the posts for the second consecutive match this season after splitting halves for most of the year. On the evening U of R had a 15-6 shot advantage and did not allow a shot on-goal, despite giving up one. They also held the advantage on corners (4-1).
ChubbFertal and Kovach led the offense each finishing with three shots for the game with two of those three from ChubbFertal finding the target.
Redlands travels to Caltech this Saturday, October 23 with kickoff set for 2:00pm.