Last Wednesday, in its first and only friendly of the season, the San Diego State men’s soccer team tied 1-1 in regulation against Trinity Western University.
After a scoreless fist half, a goal by senior defender Jordan Whitehead gave the Spartans their first lead of the game in the 74th minute.
But the Aztecs weren’t going to let Trinity get away that easily, friendly or no friendly.
Four minutes later, senior forward Jordan Ongaro assisted redshirt freshman midfielder Aaron Thompson with the game-tying goal.
The game eventually went into double overtime where Aztec senior midfielder Kody Duff scored a goal from 8 yards out in the 105th, minute with assistance from freshman midfielder Emilio Huerta.
SDSU outshot Trinity 5-3 in the first half and 16-6 in the second half. Defensively, senior goalkeeper Blake Hylen had one save, but allowed one goal during the 90 minutes of regulation. Duff led the team with five shots on goal.
At 7 p.m. this Friday at the SDSU Sports Deck, the Aztecs will play No.16 University of Toreros for their season opener.
SDSU has a tough schedule ahead of it, playing three teams ranked in the preseason top-10 and eight ranked in the top-25.
However the team is returning 11 players, six of which were a part of the team’s top seven points’ leaders last season. Three of them, senior midfielders Blake Wise and Kevin Bick in addition to Ongaro were all Pac-12 conference selections in 2012.
Wise was also recently ranked No.44 on the Top Drawer Soccer’s preseason national top-100 list.
This season, the Aztecs were predicted to finish No.5 in the Pac-12 Preseason Coaches Poll. The University of California, Los Angeles received all five possible first place votes, while the University of Washington was predicted to come in No.2 and Stanford University No.3.
Last season, SDSU finished with an overall record of 7-9-3.
