IRVINE, Calif. --- UC Irvine men's soccer celebrated Senior Day with a 3-1 win in Anteater Stadium playing a man down for a majority of the match against visiting Sacramento State.
The first 20 minutes of the match were slightly in UCI's favor on the statsheet before a pivotal turning point in the match in the 24th minute. A ball along the near sideline popped up as
Mario Anaya attempted to play it with a high kick and instead contacted Sacramento State's Sean Battistessa leading to a straight red card and the Anteaters playing with 10 men for the final 66 minutes of the match.
The sending-off did not discourage the 'Eaters who actually drew first blood on the scoreboard minutes later. UCI drew a foul setting up
Brady Treinen with the set piece along the far side. He perfectly sent his ball to the middle of the box finding
Agaton Pourshahidi whose header landed inside the right post and make it a 1-0 Anteater advantage in the 27th minute.
Sacramento State found their footing and answered eight minutes after that as a shot straight on from Donovan Sessoms was redirected on way to goal fooling
Luke Pruter and settling inside the right post to tie the game, 1-1, in the 35th minute.
The disadvantaged Anteaters responded with another goal in the 40th minute shrouded in controversy.
Isaac Powell was on the attack tracking across the top of the box before sniping a shot off the left post that bounced back to the waiting
Danny de Lorijn who volleyed it back into the net. The linesman ruled him to be offside taking the goal away, but the official went to VAR and after a check awarded a goal saying de Lorijn was on side to put UC Irvine back on top, 2-1.
The halftime came and went with UCI still down and man and leading on the scoreboard, 2-1, while the shots were even, 8-8.
The Hornets began the half with a corner kick and a chance that was saved by Pruter, one of the six put up by him and the defense, as the 'Eaters had all 10 men defending throughout the half. Then in the 59th minute, another breakthrough.
Powell again was driving the attack dribbling and weaving through players along the far sideline, and he came out with possession feeding
Misael Gonzalez who beat his man setting up a cross-box shot by the keeper and inside the left post to make it a 3-1 advantage.
The defense locked things down from then denying three more Sac State shots on goal including a brilliant play by
Brady Treinen for a team save in the 78th minute to hold the lead and get a pivotal win for the Anteaters.
- Pruter finished with five saves along with the sixth by the defense, and he scores his second win of the year and 18th of his career
- de Lorijn's goal went down as the game-winner and the first goal of is Anteater and Division I career
- Gonzalez added his goal late as he's now scored in three consecutive matches and sits second on the club with nine points
- He is chasing Pourshahidi who scored his team-best sixth goal and 14th point of the year, and he ups his career total to 10 goals
- Assists came from Isaac Powell contributing on two goals raising his season and career totals to three
- Treinen picked up a save and assisted on the first goal, his fourth this season and seventh as an Anteater
- The 'Eaters also celebrated their seniors in a ceremony prior to the match. Danny de Lorijn, Josh Kenworthy, Noah Clarkson, Paul Jing, Mathias Winum, and Roman Warren were all honored, and returning seniors Mario Anaya, Francesco Montanile, Luke Pruter, and Samuel Atiye were also recognized
The Anteaters' amazing three-goal effort while down a man helped them up to 13 Big West points at 4-3-1, and are now .500 overall on the season at 7-7-2. The points strengthen their position now tied for third in the standings and sit in a unique position where they still are in contention for the Big West regular season title at two points behind UC Santa Barbara, but the 'Eaters still need at least one point in their final match to secure a spot in the Big West Championship.
The regular season for the 'Eaters finishes up at UC San Diego on Saturday, November 2, with kickoff at 7:00 p.m.
Postmatch Quotes
Head Coach Yossi Raz -
"This team is full of character and amazing leadership, and it happened on a day that is emotional to begin with on Senior Day. It's always bittersweet that you lose great individuals from your program, but it's a great representation of who they are as people and how they're raised in adversity. W'eve had a tough team with a lot of good soccer concepts in a tough environment once we were a man down. We prevailed and I'm proud of them. The reailty is it sets up an incredible game in the regular season finale, and you always want to play meaningful soccer for the last game of the season. We're looking forward to recovering, building our bodies, building a good game plan, and see where it takes us."
Mathias Winum -
"It starts from the first game of the season. This year, we had adversity with our goalie situations, adversity with an injury to our starting winger, we had a red card against UC Riverside, and because we've been through all of this, we just look at each other and we know we're okay. We've been through it, we know that we can get through it, and it started from the top all the way to the goalie. Today was an amazing team effort."
"Talking from a senior perspective, we've been six guys that have been together for a while now and you add Danny and Paul and I think this means a lot for us, that we can get th win on senior day. That being said, we are looking forward for the next game. We take it game by game at this point, and everyone knows our goal is to defend our title and go back-to-back."
Danny de Lorijn -
"As a striker, when somebody shoots, you always run to the keeper because maybe they lose the ball or like you saw it could hit the post. I think it was a good finish, was hoping I was not offside and the call in the end was no offside, that scared me a little, but as a striker it feels amazing to score always. It's a confidence boost; once you score goals, you keep scoring goals, so hopefully I can keep doing that. I think we worked really hard as a team today, one of our best games."
"It's amazing, we're trying to make the playoffs. I believe that we will, but it's good that we have this boost to keep winning games. It's better than in the beginning of the season so if we can keep this up we can win the Big West."
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