Willie Spurr (20), Juan Oropeza (9) and the Geoducks shut out visiting Doane College.
Three First Half Goals Carry Geoducks to Victory
The Evergreen State College picked up its second men’s soccer win against no defeats this season with a convincing 3-0 victory over the Doane College Tigers on Sunday afternoon at Geoduck Pitch.
Evergreen is now 2-0-0 for the season while the Tigers, playing in the second of a two-match Pacific Northwest tour, are 2-3-0.
For the second straight match the Geoducks found the back of the net on three occasions, and like in an earlier victory at Northwest Christian, three different players scored the goals. In fact, the Geoducks have six different goal scorers through the first two contests.
Despite all that, it was Doane that came out on the front foot and got the first shot. It didn’t take more than a few minutes, however, before the Geoducks had gained control of the match.
Evergreen opened the scoring at 11:39 when Tanner Williams took a pass from Juan Oropeza, touched the ball around a defender and blasted the shot past Casey Clark, the Doane goalkeeper.
With the Geoducks mounting up the pressure on the Doane defense, Clark came up with two spectacular saves within 90 seconds of each other about 18 minutes into the half. First, he tipped an 18-yard bullet by Willie Spurr over the bar, and then he got fingertips to a curling left-footed drive by Issa Hassan, pushing the ball off of the crossbar.
Jake Zimmerman contributed assists on the next two Evergreen goals, the first coming from Juan Lopez at 31:49 and the second from Crisantos Chavez at 36:55. For Chavez, a transfer junior defender, it was his first goal as a Geoduck.
By the half the Geoducks had the match firmly in hand with a 12-1 lead in shots and a 3-0 advantage in corner kicks. Evergreen keeper Angel Guerra had little to do, and in fact he did not have a save in the period.
The second half was more open as Doane found more of the ball. Both teams took nine shots in the final 45 minutes, and the Tigers had two corners to one for the Geoducks. Evergreen freshman Ben Stevenson, seeing his first collegiate action, was called on to make four saves, while Clark came up with five in the second half and eight for the match.
The final totals showed Evergreen with 21 shots, 12 on goal, compared to 10 shots for Doane, four of which were on frame.
Evergreen returns to action at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 12, when it travels to Salem, Ore., to face the Willamette University Bearcats.