San Jose State University men’s soccer team failed to complete the comeback against the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley as it fell 2-1 in Sunday’s match. This loss dropped the Spartans’ conference record to 5-4-1 with one game remaining on the schedule.
The first goal of the match was scored by Vaqueros junior forward Kyle Edwards in the second minute. The Vaqueros’ second goal was shot shortly after when junior forward William Akio was able to get a shot past SJSU senior goalkeeper Alex Clewis in the eighth minute.
With the score 2-0 early in the first half, the Spartans were in early trouble. SJSU was able to get one past Vaqueros’ junior goalkeeper Andy Rios for their first and only goal of the match. According to the stats sheet, the goal was confirmed to be an own goal.
Sophomore midfielder Max Allen thought the beginning of the first half put the Spartans at a disadvantage throughout the match.
“Against any team, giving them two goals, it’s going to be hard to get it back,” Allen said. “We just couldn’t score them with the two goals.”
Head coach Simon Tobin thought similarly to Allen.
“I thought we dominated the game, but it was not good enough at the beginning,” Tobin said. “To me, the game was asking an awful lot for us after we gave them a two- goal lead.”
The Spartans racked up the most shots with 16 while the Vaqueros had 11. The Spartans also had more corner kicks than the Vaqueros with seven overall while the Vaqueros had four.
Sophomore defender Omar Lemus thought the team was playing fine overall, but the two early goals put the team off mentally.
“It kind of hit us mentally. It took us couple 10 or 15 minutes after that to get back into our shape,” Lemus said.” We kind of dominated overall, but just those two mistakes kind of killed us.”
During the second half, the Spartans tried to get the game-tying goal to force overtime but were unable to prevail. There were a couple of missed shots that could’ve changed the tide of the match.
Lemus mentioned one of the Spartans’ opportunities right before the final whistle that could’ve potentially pushed the game to overtime.
“In terms of the end too, we could’ve had a chance to tie it up, but unfortunately that didn’t go in,” Lemus said.
Lemus added the Spartans’ defense could’ve been better and felt the team’s positioning wasn’t enough to stop the Vaqueros’ offensive ability.
“They countered us pretty much every time they got the ball. They kind of put us in out of our shape,” Lemus said.” I think defensively we all got a job to defend as one unit.”
The Spartans will next play against Seattle University at 7 p.m. on Friday at the Spartan Soccer Complex. It will be the final conference match of the season for the team before the start of the Western Athletic Conference tournament on Nov. 7.
