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Bulldogs Feel The Love As His Goal Provides Bay Area Sweep
Nov. 2, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - Nick Love's goal in the second overtime gave Gonzaga University a weekend sweep of the Bay Area Sunday with a 3-2 double-overtime victory over second-place University of San Francisco (6-8-2, 5-3-1), throwing the Bulldogs (7-7-2, 4-4-1) back into the thick of the West Coast Conference men's soccer race. The Bulldogs, 2-1 winners Friday at Santa Clara University, now have 13 points and trail the Dons by just three points. First-place University of San Diego, which visits Gonzaga Soccer Field Friday for a 1 p.m. match, lost its only match of the weekend 2-0 at home to Saint Mary's College, leaving the Toreros atop the standings with 18 points. Gonzaga is alone in third place two points ahead of SMC (3-3-2 for 11 points). Sophomore Nick Love scored the decisive goal - his third goal in as many matches since returning to action after suffering a broken thumb - at 102:43. He took a cross from the far post from Tye Perdido and punched home the match winner past diving USF keeper Jeremy Coupe. Both teams battled from a goal down. USF got the first goal at 11:00 as Conor Chinn scored his 10th of the season for the Dons, taking a short cross from Bryan Burke and beating Gonzaga keeper Scott Barnum from 5 yards. The Bulldogs scored the next two goals to take a 2-1 halftime lead. Mitch Boland, who scored the match winner Friday at SCU, got his second career goal at 27:46 Sunday, his diving header off a near-post cross from Ben Funkhouser beating Coupe from five yards.
Tye Perdido put the Bulldogs ahead at 33:48. Nick Barclay's pass set up Perdido one-one-one with Coupe, who came out of the net, stopped and Perdido lobbed a chip shot from the top of the box over Coupe. But the Dons wasted little time knotting things in the second half, Chinn scoring his second goal of the cloudy, 60-degree afternoon at 51:13. Jared Cruz sent a cross from the far post that Victor Wennberg took for a short feed to Chinn for the easy open-net goal. Peridio, who had seven career goals entering the season, now has seven this season and his 14 career goals tie him for ninth on the all-time Gonzaga list with Abbas Faridnia (1998-01). His 34 career points are one shy of knotting Scott Yuska (2000-03) for 10th. Funkhouser's ninth career assist leaves him one shy of moving into a three-way tie for 10th with Chris LaRochelle (1995-97) and Matt Blasdel (1996-99) on the Gonzaga list. His six assists this season are tied for sixth on the single-season list with Brian Ching (2000 and 1996) and Jason Kuska (1998 and 1996). USF held a 23-9 shots advantage as Barnum was called on for a career-high 11 saves to just one by Coupe. Gonzaga had the only two shots in the overtimes. Gonzaga head coach Einar Thorarinsson was obviously pleased with the weekend sweep, just a sign that his team is starting to jell after losing 10 seniors off last year's NCAA Tournament squad. "I think we're starting to come together. We're starting to find out who everybody is and we're starting to finish our opportunities on offense. We're connecting with each other on offense. And our defense is playing solid which also helps our offense," Thorarinsson said. Every match is almost like a playoff game for the Bulldogs the rest of the season, although the Bulldogs still need some help to entertain thoughts of a championship. Gonzaga has home matches Friday against USD and Sunday against Loyola Marymount University before ending the regular season Nov. 16 at Saint Mary's College. USD has the Pacific Northwest swing Friday at Gonzaga and Sunday at Portland, then concludes the season with home matches against USF and SCU. USF finishes WCC play with three straight road matches against SMC, USD and LMU. |
