Season winds down for men's club soccer

By Ana Tintocalis, On Line Forty-Niner

Thursday, October 22, 1998

The Long Beach State men's club soccer team was conquered by the UC San Diego Tritons 3-4 Tuesday in its seventh away game and racked up its first tie of the season 1-1 against the Tritons on Saturday at Long Beach State's Athletic Field.

In Tuesday's game, UC San Diego outplayed The Beach in the first half and was able to score just 4 minutes into the game.

The Triton offense continued to pound the 49ers defense as it scored two more times, which brought the score to 3-0.

The 49ers struggled to close the gap in the second half and managed to penetrate through the Tritons defense to score their first goal when forward Brian McMahon fired a shot into the net off a pass from midfielder Dan Kolano.

With quick and accurate passing, the 49ers came back with a vengeance and scored their second goal when Mike Stevens headed the ball past the Triton goalie off a corner kick from Ryan Keck.

UC San Diego answered back and scored the winning goal three minutes later.

McMahon managed to score The Beach's third goal of the game With just 20 minutes remaining in the game, but the team did not score again for the tie.

"The second half was like night and day compared to the first," said Long Beach State's assistant soccer coach John Rawls. "The team started working harder, thinking faster and making runs and checking in."

The 49ers first faced the Tritons Saturday on their home turf.

Both teams fought hard during the first half, but UC San Diego was the first to be on top when it scored 18 minutes into the game.

The Beach tied the game when McMahon managed to fire a shot into the goal off a breakaway.

Neither team was able to score throughout the second half.

The Long Beach State men's club soccer team has only three games left in the season, and its record stands at 1-3-1.

The Beach hopes to win the next few games so it can enter the National Collegiate Soccer Association's West Regional Championships which will be held Nov. 5-7 in Las Vegas.