SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco State men's soccer team rose to the occasion with a 3-0 win over Cal State Dominguez Hills in Sunday's nationally-televised match, a crucial CCAA contest at Cox Stadium.
The result was rather lopsided despite the Gators (5-2-1/2-2-1 CCAA) being outshot 13-10. However, only four of the Toros' (3-7-0/3-3-0 CCAA) shots were on goal while the Gators fired half a dozen on frame. The physical match saw a dozen fouls issued to each squad and the only caution of the game came in the 87th minute on San Francisco State's Johnathan Orozco. Peter Swinkels made three saves and recorded his sixth clean sheet of the season.
It was all Toros in the first 12 minutes as the San Francisco State defense had to fend off three shots. The tides turned in the 17th minute when
Aydan Bowers settled a ball on the left side outside the box and chipped it in to
Clayton Sato, who took the ball off of a defender and fired it in on the left side for the early lead. The Gators threatened again in the 41st minute when Sato played a nice ball from the midfield ahead to Gutierrez on the right side but Gutierrez couldn't get a clean touch and his shot in the box was right to the chest of goalkeeper Justin Fairchild. The Toros' best opportunity of the first half came in the 44th minute on a 1v1 for Ramiro Palencia, who drew out Swinkels but the sophomore goalkeeper read the play correctly and made a save with his right foot.
The Gators applied pressure early. In the 47th minute, Guerrero header back to Fairchild was intercepted by Gutierrez but his shot went wide left into the netting. in the 52nd minute, Brandon Sands fired a shot from just inside the circle but it went left of the post and out of bounds for a goal kick. In the 53rd minute, a Toros defender played the ball back to Fairchild but the ball instead looped over Fairchild's head in and for an own goal. In the 65th minute, Sato scored his second goal of the day and third of the season from the inside of the box off of a pass from Jorden Wusstig. The Gators had a chance to put it well out of reach with a penalty kick in the 71st minute but Tariq Pulskamp's shot hit off the right post.
The Gators' homestand continues on October 5 and 7. San Francisco State takes on No. 23 Cal State San Marcos on Friday, October 5 and the first 250 fans in attendance will receive a San Francisco State soccer scarf! On Sunday, October 7 the Gators' games versus No. 13 UC San Diego will be nationally televised on Eleven Sports USA. Live stats for both matches 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.
