Posted: Oct 21, 2017
SAN DIEGO – Santa Clara men's soccer concluded the nonconference portion of its schedule on Saturday night, losing 3-0 against San Diego State at the SDSU Sports Deck.
The Broncos are now 2-11-0 overall while the Aztecs moved to 5-9-0.
With the critical stretch of conference play looming, Broncos head coach Cameron Rast turned to his bench to get an assessment on their play in the nonconference finale.
"We need to utilized our bench if we are to have a viable shot of winning the conference in the last three weeks," said Rast. "We wanted to take a look at number of players and we learned where they are at this stage of the season. I think the game was very useful and they showed they can do some things for us."
Redshirt sophomore Dylan Caton led the team in shots with five with three of them on frame.
"For a good stretch, Dylan showed some encouraging signs on the attacking side as he was very active, wanting the loose ball and was willing to move forward," said Rast.
The Broncos head coach also talked about the plays of junior midfielder Keanu Mendoza and junior forward Jonathan Jarrett.
"Keanu put in a lot work tonight. He looked for the ball and wanted to be a creator. And Jarrett I thought did an admiral job to keep the attack going. In general, until the later stages of the match when we shifted shape, the backline did a reasonable job."
The Aztects jumped on the Broncos quickly, scoring in the third minute on a goal by Tevenn Roux to go up, 1-0.
"It was not surprising that we conceded a goal early since our group was new. We didn't get our feet underneath us because of the speed of the game but once we took the goal, we settled down," said Rast.
The match remained 1-0 in favor of the Aztecs until the 65th minute when Jeroen Meefout scored to put San Diego State up, 2-0.
"Things were fairly even in the match but fatigue set in. The players haven't been played in so they weren't quite as sharp and because of that, we conceded the second goal. We shifted our shape and that left us isolated and exposed us," said the Broncos head coach.
Meefout scored his second goal of the match in the 88th minute for the final score of 3-0 in favor of the Aztecs.
NOTES
• Santa Clara is now 11-7-2 all-time against San Diego State.
• Matthew Sipowicz, Dylan Carrubba, Martin Riedler, John Spurling and Stefano Paolina each saw their first action of the season.
• Sipowicz, Carrubba, Riedler along with Matt Golbranson got their first starts of the season.
• Aran O'Brien got his second starting assignment of the season at goalkeeper before being substituted out by Seamus Hudnut.
UP NEXT
The Broncos resumes West Coast Conference play on the road against Portland on Friday, Oct. 27 at 7 p.m.
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