SAN FRANCISCO — Clayton Sato's late heroics provided a walk-off of sorts for the San Francisco State Men's soccer team on Friday. Coming off a two-goal game, the sophomore netted his fourth goal of the season with 17 seconds left as San Francisco State edged CCAA foe Cal State San Marcos 1-0 at Cox Stadium.
Outside of the opening minutes, San Francisco State (6-2-3/3-2-2 CCAA) dominated the game. The Golden Gators outshot the Cougars (6-3-2/2-2-2 CCAA) 16-2 and held a 7-1 corner kick advantage.
The Cougars came out sprinting in the first 10 minutes and it nearly paid off in the fifth minute. However, a potential Cougars goal was waived offside. Outside of that play, it was hard for the Cougars to maintain that pace and San Francisco State outshot CSUSM 8-1 in the first half. In the 14th minute, the Gators threatened with a corner kick.
Brandon Brunac's shot was blocked and
Carlos Trujeque leal's rebound and shot was saved.
Moses Gutierrez drew a foul near the corner in the 32nd minute that essentially resulted in a corner kick but
Tariq Pulskamp's header went wide left. Less than a minute later, Trujeque leal had another ball in transition but his shot was saved and
Richard Leon's follow-up was blocked.
In the 57th minute, Gustav Fink fired a shot from the top of the box that Jutin Tesar had to dive to save. In the 68th minute, a ball rolled off of Richard Leon's shouder blades to remain in bounds but the Gators couldn't get a clean shot after a nice through ball. A minute later, Trujeque leal put too much leg into a ball that sailed high. Most of the second half was plaqued by rampant yellow cards, with seven of the match's nine coming in the second half. The Cougars threatened in the 79th minute with a shot from past the top of the box that was saved by Swinkels, who picked up his seventh shutout in 11 contests. With 17 seconds remaining, Sato played a ball on the left side at the edge of the goal box and got his left foot on it before goalkeeper Justin Tesar could stop it.
The Gators' homestand concludes on Sunday, October 7 at 2:05 p.m. The Gators take on No. 9 UC San Diego in a nationally-televised broadcast on Eleven Sports USA. Live stats will be available at at
sfstategators.com and in-game updates will be available on Twitter at
@sfstate_msoc.
Eleven Sports USA is available in 55 million homes on national cable systems such as AT&T U-verse (channel 1665), DIREC TV (channel 623), and Verizon Fios (channel 597). ELEVEN can be found on various other cable and OTT providers such as Google Fiber 251, RCN 571, Atlantic Broadband 501, and Hawaiian Telcom 1091. The game will also be available online at
BAOSN.tv.
