Press Release
The Utah State Eastern men’s soccer team picked up two key conference wins on Friday and Saturday against the Salt Lake Community College Bruins.
The Eagles defeated the Bruins on Friday 5-2 despite less than ideal weather conditions including a hail storm in the last ten minutes of the game.
Sophomore Xavier Smith scored the first goal of the game with an assist from Guillermo Hernandezin the 16′ minute. The scoring continued in the first half with a goal by sophomore Jae Partridge coming off an assist from Jojea Kwizera. In the final seconds of the first half, Salt Lake got on the board with a goal from Alex Jaimez.
After halftime, the scoring continued with a goal from Mat Clark with an assist from Paul Zarkin. Salt Lake responded fifteen minutes later with another goal from Jaimez to cut the lead to 3-2 in favor of USU Eastern.
In the 79′ minute of the game, Luke Madsen scored a goal for the Eagles to help put the game out of reach for the Bruins with the help of Partridge on the assist. The Eagles got one last goal from Kwizera in the final minutes of the game, which was unassisted.
Sophomore keeper Austin Munoz was in goal for the Eagles for the full 90 minutes and had 12 saves.
Head coach Ammon Bennett said after the game that Friday’s match was a great win but very sloppy all around.
“We won but it was a sloppy game, their goal keeper made mistakes you are never going to see such as slipping and falling twice,” said Bennett.
Saturday had better weather and a much closer game for USU Eastern. The Eagles defeated the Bruins 1-0 in a tight defensive game to sweep the weekend of matches. Clark got the lone goal in the match when he scored in the 30′ minute in the first half with an assist from Smith.
Bennett said that at halftime he was impressed with the way his team came out after Friday’s sloppy game.
“In the first half, we played great soccer and the players did what we as coaches wanted them to,” said Bennett.
Bennett addressed his team at halftime and told them he knew not let up against a very good Salt Lake team.
“At halftime, we felt like they would get more opportunities and Salt Lake stepped up their game but fortunately we were able to not allow a ball in the net,” said Bennett.
Salt Lake outshot the Eagles 14-7 but were unable to score on Munoz, who was in net for the Eagles. Munoz had four saves on Saturday, including a huge save during a penalty shot from Salt Lake’s Aaron Martinez.
With the two wins this weekend, the men’s soccer team now holds a 3-3-1 overall record and a 2-1 conference record.
The Eagles will hit the road next weekend to Colorado to take on Trinidad State on Friday and Otero on Saturday for two non-conference matches. Their next home game will be October 11 against conference foe College of Southern Nevada.
For more Utah State Eastern Athletics information including stats, scores, and schedules, please visit usueasternathletics.com or Utah State Eastern Athletics on Facebook.