Men's Soccer | 11/2/2012 11:39:00 AM
McPherson, Kan. – McPherson men’s soccer head into the KCAC postseason tournament flying high on a four-game winning streak. They will look to continue that streak on Saturday as they host Bethany College in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament; game time is 2:00 p.m. (CT) at McPherson Stadium.
It was just over a week ago that these two squads faced each other with MC winning the 5-0 rout. Since then, the Bulldogs have won twice by a combined 14-0 while Bethany has gone 1-1, defeating Bethel 2-1 and losing to Ottawa 0-2.
In their last meeting, the scoring got started by Oscar Cortez who put a ball in the net just 12 minutes into the game. The other goal in the opening period was booted in by Brooks Walsh from about 40 yards out; Eddie Garcia assisted on the shot.
Christian Rodriguez scored his first goal of the match seconds into the second half on an outstanding cross by Andrew Suits. Tito Ruiz blasted in the next goal on Suits’ second assist. Another pass from Suits gave Rodriguez his second goal, bringing the score to 5-0, completely shutting down Bethany’s hopes of staying in the game.
A great defensive effort was put forth by the Bulldogs who not only started three different players on the backline, but also put freshman Fernando Gonzalez in goal where he recorded the shutout and tallied three saves in his first career start.
The Bulldogs finished the regular season 11-5-1, going 6-3 in the conference. They were led offensively by Johnny Nuthall who put up 11 goals during the season, averaging an unprecedented 4.41 shots per game, leading the KCAC in both categories; he also had four assists, giving him 26 total points.
McPherson leads the KCAC in goals per game with 2.82 and has scored 48 times this season. They also are atop the conference in shots taken each time out at 21.24 which ranks them 10th in the NAIA. The defense is only allowing 1.18 goals each contest, placing them second in the KCAC
Bethany ended the year nearly the opposite of MC with a final regular season record of 4-11-1, 4-4-1 in the KCAC. The Swedes are led by Lucas Procopio who is averaging 0.4 goals per contest and has six for the season.
As a team, Bethany is scoring an average of 1.19 goals per game and allowing 2.63, often leaving them on the wrong side of some close competitions.
The winner of Saturday’s match will take on the KCAC top-ranked Kansas Wesleyan University Coyotes on Wednesday, November 7. That game will be at 7:00 p.m. (CT) in Salina, Kansas.
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