Geoducks Headed to Postseason Play After Tie
The Evergreen State College punched its ticket to the Cascade Collegiate Conference men’s soccer postseason tournament on Friday afternoon with a thrilling 1-1 double overtime tie against conference leader and No. 6-ranked Rocky Mountain College at Capital High School.
With 19 points, the Geoducks (6-4-5 overall, 5-3-4 CCC) will advance to the conference tournament for the fourth straight year and for the fifth time in the last six seasons no matter what happens in tomorrow’s match against College of Idaho. That contest starts at 2:30 p.m. at Capital High School and will be preceded by a Senior Day event honoring Issa Hassan, Kevin Elliott-McCrea, Martin Ramirez and Connor Beck.
It was Hassan and Elliott-McCrea, longtime stalwarts in the middle of the field, who combined to feed the ball to Angel Trejo-Delgado for the tying goal in the 87th minute.
The visiting Bears, who came into the match riding an impressive 10-match win streak, opened the scoring at 26:31 when Sam Davidson ran onto a through ball by Matthew Thomas and finished past Evergreen keeper Ben Stevenson and into the lower right corner.
Rocky owned an 8-4 shot advantage through the opening half and a 9-4 edge in the second period, but it was Evergreen that scored the valuable match-tying point at 87:25.
The play started Hassan crossing the ball from the left wing to Elliott-McCrea, who headed it back in front for Trejo-Delgado to finish from close range past Rocky Mountain keeper Cole Catlin. The goal was the team-leading ninth of the season for the freshman forward from Federal Way.
Rocky had two shots in the first overtime period and the Geoducks had one attempt in the second 10-minute extra session, but neither team was able to tally the match winner.
Stevenson was solid in goal with six saves and he also was helped when a teammate cleared a shot off the line in the opening half.
The Bears owned a 19-9 advantage in shots, including an 8-1 margin in shots on goal, but Evergreen made its one on-frame effort count. As a result, the Geoducks will play in the eight-team conference tournament, which gets underway on Friday, Nov. 3, in Springfield, Ore.