Men’s soccer: Lions blanked by Point Loma Nazarene

Tony Altobelli

SAN DIEGO - With the calm and tranquillity of the Pacific Ocean as

a majestic background, the Vanguard University men’s soccer team waged a

bitter war with host Point Loma Nazarene Wednesday in the first round of

the NAIA Region II playoffs.

In the end, it was Vanguard who had to wave the white flag.

The Crusaders slipped past the Lions, 2-0, much to the delight of the

crazed Point Loma faithful in attendance.

“The style of soccer that Point Loma plays is very hard to match up

against,” Coach Dave McLeish said. “They’re big and aggressive. When they

get the momentum going and they start to dictate their rough style, the

game doesn’t play too much like soccer anymore.”

Vince Paccione’s goal in the 56th minute was all Point Loma (12-5-1)

would need to win the contest as Crusaders’ goalie Joe Barton was

dominant, stopping nine Lions’ shots, including a penalty kick with nine

minutes left in the contest.

Vanguard (10-5-1) trailed 1-0 when Diego Goni was pulled down in front

of Barton and awarded the penalty kick.

Goni, the team leader in goals, sent a shot for the lower-right

corner, but Barton guessed right and threw his body in front of the ball

and kept Vanguard off the scoreboard.

“Diego is always so calm out there and he usually buries those shots,”

McLeish said. “That was very uncharacteristic of him not to score on

that.”

After that opportunity was missed, the Lions scrambled for another

equalizer, but could not come up with one. With less than a minute

remaining, Tasia Musa scored to cap the scoring.

“Barton was the difference out there,” assistant coach Fred Goff said.

“He played a playoff-style of goaltending and made some unbelievable

saves.”

Not to be outdone, Lions’ goalie Mathew Resor was also outstanding,

stopping 10 shots.

“In my opinion, Mathew is one of the best goalies in all of Southern

California,” Goff said. “Even on the first goal, he made the initial

save. We just didn’t clear the ball away after his save.”

The Lions battled the Crusaders to a scoreless first half of play,

thanks to the play of Resor. He made two point-blank saves to keep the

game close.

At the half, McLeish called on his team for a more intense effort and

his team delivered.

The Lions had three excellent opportunities to take the lead, but

Barton was up to the test.

Finally, Point Loma got on the scoreboard. Resor sprawled in front of

a point-blank shot and ball bounced right to PLNU’s Daniel Salas. He

passed the ball to Paccione who scored into the vacated goal.

Minutes later, Goni sent a header into the upper-right corner of the

goal, but Barton got just enough of the ball to keep it out of harm’s

way.

Following the missed penalty kick, McLeish tried to throw every player

into the offensive mix, but was not successful.

“We were scrambling in the final minutes,” he said. “That’s how the

second goal scored. But at that point, it doesn’t matter if you lose 1-0

or 10-0.”

Despite the loss, McLeish thought his team had nothing to be ashamed

of.

“We had a great season,” McLeish said. “We’re going to lose seven

seniors and they’ll be hard to replace. But we’ve got a strong core of

players coming back and we are in the works of getting some very strong

new players to come here next year. We’ll be back.”

The Lions were forced to play at Point Loma, despite having a better

record than the Crusaders in Golden State Athletic Conference.

Playoff seedings were determined by the Longo Rating System, a process

of number-crunching similar to how college football determines national

rankings.

“Coming down here didn’t matter a bit,” McLeish said. “Our only GSAC

loss came here and we wanted to try to even the score with a win today,

but it wasn’t meant to be.”

Vanguard finished runner-up to Azusa Pacific in conference with a

7-1-1 record. The Crusaders were 6-3.