SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Pacific men's soccer (5-8-4, 1-8-1 WCC) dropped its final game of the season to West Coast Conference co-regular season champion Santa Clara (7-7-3, 5-1-1 WCC), 2-1, on Saturday.
The Tigers had good looks in the first half as they outshot the Broncos, 11-6, with two on frame.
Pacific scored the first goal in the 51st minute. Senior
Cory Johnson, on a corner kick, found fifth-year senior
Emmanuel Benson-Oladeinbo who headed the ball into the net for the 1-0 lead.
Santa Clara responded a minute later with the equalizer from Naji Elder in the 52nd minute.
Both teams searched for the winning goal as the clock ticked down. The Tigers had two chances in between the pipes but were both saved by Broncos goalkeeper Jack Stoecker.
Unfortunately, with three minutes left in the contest, Joshua Dabora scored in the 87th minute to lead Santa Clara to a share of the regular season conference title.
Overall, Pacific had 18 shots with five of them in goal. Redshirt junior goalkeeper
Joshua Moya grabbed three saves.
The game also marked the final one for Benson-Oladeinbo, Johnson,
Myles Hall,
Tanner Johnson,
Derick Roque,
Samuel Saiz Herraiz,
Samuel Villalta and
Avery Whipple.
"I want to publicly thank this great group of seniors for all of their efforts both on and off the field," said head coach
Adam Reeves. "We played some very good soccer and created enough good chances to score four or five goals, especially early on and we weren't clinical enough. We have to learn from this and use it as motivation to improve moving forward."
Reeves will need to replace seven on the Tigers' roster next season. Starters
Lukas Aeberli,
Jose Maria Barrera,
Javier Chavez and
Marco Martinez are expected to return for the 2024 season. Moya will also be back in net for Pacific next year.
