The San Diego State men’s soccer team lost its first conference game in heartbreaking fashion on Friday, 1-0, in double-overtime to the University of California, Berkeley.
“We were doing everything well starting from our goalie all the way up to our shot line and we were definitely executing all our coaching points,” senior forward Ata Ozbay said. “We just could not find the goal that we needed.”
SDSU dominated both halves, but could not put the ball in the back of the net. The Aztecs outshot the Golden Bears, 9-5, in the first half and 5-3 in the second half.
The Aztecs had a total of seven shots on goal, all of which were saved by California Bear sophomore goalkeeper Kevin Peach. Junior goalkeeper Blake Hylen and sophomore goalkeeper Tim Peitsch each had two saves for the Aztecs.
“We came out with a lot of energy and I think we were the better side over the first 90 minutes,” Ozbay said. “We had Cal on their heels at their stadium, which not a lot of teams are able to do.”
As the game continued into overtime, the Aztecs fought to keep UC Berkeley away from the goal. Both teams attempted two shots in the first overtime period, but could not score.
As a result, the game went into double-overtime and the Golden Bears slowly began to take control of the game.
In the 107th minute, sophomore forward Stefano Bonomo scored the game-winning goal, with assistance from senior midfielder Tony Salciccia and senior forward John Fitzpatrick.
During the second overtime, the California Bears outshot SDSU 6-2 for the first time in the entire game.
“I got very nervous at the end,” junior forward Jordan Ongaro said. “The last five minutes, they started attacking more and they kept getting more and more chances, which was very frustrating.”
The battle finally came to an end and the Aztecs were defeated 1-0.
Ozbay led the Aztecs with three shots, two of which were on goal. Ongaro also contributed two shots on goal.
On Sunday, the team continued its Pacific-12 Conference schedule in Palo Alto, losing to Stanford, 2-0. SDSU now sits at 4-4-1 on the season and is 0-2 in conference play.
The Aztecs will continue conference play at 7 p.m. on Friday at the SDSU Sports Deck against the University of Washington. The Aztecs will take on Oregon State at 1 p.m. on Oct. 7 at home.
“We created plenty of scoring chances that we should have capitalize on, but we didn’t,” Ongaro said. “I still think we are on the right track and we are getting stronger and stronger.”
