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Funkhouser Penalty Kick Gives Bulldogs Tie With Beavers
Sept. 8, 2009
SPOKANE, Wash. - Ben Funkhouser scored Gonzaga University's third penalty-kick goal of the season at 83:15 Tuesday to give the Bulldogs a 1-1 overtime tie with Oregon State University in a non-conference men's soccer match at Gonzaga Soccer Field. The teams played only one overtime period because of darkness. Funkhouser's penalty kick was set up when Joel Schilperoort tried to split the Beavers (2-0-1) defense and was pulled down in the box. Funkhouser drilled his shot to the lower left corner to beat OSU keeper Steve Spangler for his second goal of the season, both on PKs. It was also the second time a Schilperoort play has led to a penalty kick. OSU, which will remain in Spokane to participate in the Gonzaga/Nike Classic this weekend, took the lead at 38:42. Alex Penny sent a long pass from the top of his 18 past midfield to Eddy Prugh who dribbled down the right side, got some space between himself and a Gonzaga defender at the top 18 and sent a right-to-left shot into the top corner of the net to beat Gonzaga keeper Scott Barnum. It was Prugh's first goal of the season. Gonzaga (1-1-2) had a couple of scoring opportunities in the first half. The first came when Corvallis, Ore., native Tim Muravez saw his header skirt just wide left off a Funkhouser corner kick in the 21st minute, and the second came when Schilperoort couldn't get a foot on the ball with an open net in front of him in a goal mouth scramble in the 33rd minute, and Spangler made a diving stop to his right when Schilperoort was able to recover his balance and get a second-chance shot from the top of the six. The Bulldogs, playing their fourth match in a week, showed some fatigue after playing at Ohio State University in a tournament over the weekend.
"We didn't have our spark today," Gonzaga head coach Einar Thorarinsson said. "Oregon State is tough to play against because they take the middle away. We tried to do some cross-field passes to open things up, but that's not really our style of play." The Bulldogs held an 11-10 edge in shots, including 9-3 in the second half. Several of OSU's shots were of the long-range variety and Barnum was only called on for one save. Spangler had four saves in the OSU net. Barnum, who has allowed just one goal in each of Gonzaga's four matches, has won the keeper job, Thorarinsson said. "There's no doubt," Thorarinsson said when asked if Barnum had performed well enough to win the job. "He's starting to play with confidence." There were seven yellow cards in the match, five against OSU. Most of the cautions were for language violations, a point of emphasis this season. The match also featured the return to Spokane of former Bulldog assistant and current OSU head coach Steve Simmons who was with the Bulldogs in 1994. When Thorarinsson got the Gonzaga head job from Spokane's Whitworth College (since changed to university status), Simmons replaced Thorarinsson at Whitworth. The Gonzaga/Nike Classic begins Friday at 1:30 p.m. with OSU facing University of Detroit-Mercy, followed by the Bulldogs against Georgia Southern at 4 p.m. Sunday's action has OSU facing GSU at 10:30 a.m. and Gonzaga and Detroit squaring off at 1 p.m. |
