James Ganor and the CU dfeense held OIT to eight shot attempts on Friday.
Cavs Close out Regular Season with 4-1 Win over Owls
PORTLAND, Ore.—Avenging a loss earlier in the season, the Concordia men’s soccer team defeated Oregon Tech 4-1 in the team’s regular-season finale played at Delta Park on Friday.
With the win, Concordia ended the year with a 12-5-1 overall record an 11-3-0 mark in Cascade Collegiate Conference play. The Cavs have secured the No. 2 seed in the CCC tournament and await Oregon Tech’s (8-7-2, 5-6-2 CCC) Saturday match at Warner Pacific (11-4-1, 10-2-1 CCC) for the final CCC standings. With a Warner Pacific tie or loss to the Owls, Concordia will move into the top seed while WPC will take the second spot. The Knights will be awards the No.1 seed with a win.
The top three teams qualify for the postseason tournament with No. 2 and No. 3 facing each other on Tuesday and the winner facing the top seed on Saturday for the tournament championship and a bid into the NAIA National Tournament.
“The guys came out strong in the first half,” Concordia head coach Dan Birkey said. “We kept the ball well, organized on defense and capitalized on chances they created.”
CU freshman Jared Brace (Vancouver, Wash.) opened the game’s scoring in the 11th minute of play after receiving the ball from teammate Facundo Dipascuale (Buenos Aires, Argentina) for his conference-leading 13th goal of the season.
Senior Tyler Camp (Vancouver, Wash.) was credited with the game-winning score with a successful shot after a feed from defender Zack Madison (Bend, Ore.).
The Owls cut the lead in half as Lorenzo Vazquez (Roseburg, Ore.) scored in the 37th minute with an assist from Devin Torrey (Medford, Ore.), but the home side placed two more scores in the back of the net in the second half, the first by Mirza Ramic (Banja Luka, Bosnia) and the second by Turner Bloom (Kailua, Hawaii) to put the game to rest.
Camp was credited with the assist to Ramic’s score in the 56th minute while Dipascuale picked up his second assist on Bloom’s goal in the 69th minute.
“The team responded to the OIT goal which happened against the flow of the game,” Birkey said. “Brace and Camp again were very dangerous and busy and we got two brilliant goals in the second half to close the game out for us.”
Concordia outshot the Owls 21-to-8 while Claudio Lazar (Ploiesti, Romania) wrapped up three saves to preserve the win in goal for the Cavs. Tommy Burden (Costa Mesa, Calif.) collected four saves in the loss.
“James Gaynor and Will Snow were dominant today in the center back,” Birkey said. “I know they wanted to get the things right that cost us a couple of scores in the Simon Fraser match last time out. It was good to finish the regular season and now we have to refocus our attention towards a title run. The postseason starts right away and we are excited to be back in the hunt.”