FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – November 20th, 2025
West Palm Beach, Fla. - Warner Pacific Men's Soccer faced off against last years NAIA National Champion, Dalton State in round one of the NAIA National Tournament and secured a 2-0 win to move on to the second round.
Warner Pacific came out hot and took the lead early in the 30th minute when Chris Marcial-Cruz buried his first goal of the season. It was a chaotic goal off a WPU corner from right to left. The ball was saved by the Roadrunners but then found the foot of Marcial-Cruz who looped a high arcing shot from left to right and snuck it in the top of the goal to put the Knights up 1-0. The Knights played the last 15 minutes of the half well defending their zone and went to halftime up 1-0.
Bodo Calderon in the second half stepped up and scored a penalty kick in the 69th minute which was his eighth of those of the season and 15th goal overall on the year. With an impressive four saves, Owen Purvis stood on his head and kept the Roadrunners off the board. Not all the defensive credit can go to just Purvis though as the Knights in general put on another masterclass when it came to defensive pressure. Whenever the Roadrunners had a run at the net, the Knights were always there to block shots before the ball could even get to Purvis. The Roadrunners would try to pass the ball close to the box side to side to get a good angle at a shot but the Knights were always rotating well to take away the windows of opportunity from the defending Naia National Champions.
The Knights were able to salt the game away and win 2-0 moving on to the next round. Warner Pacific had 14 shots on the day to 15 for the Roadrunners but the Knights had six shots on goal as opposed to four for the Roadrunners.
Next Up
With an impressive win in the first round against the defending National Champions, the knights now will have a day of rest to get ready to play the host team Keiser University who is ranked third in the last poll. The match is set to start at 10:30am PT at the Vecellio Field. The winner of this game will punch their ticket to the final site in Orange Beach, Alabama.