By: Zach DeMarcus
August 29, 2018
 
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) #22 Westmont Men's Soccer (1-2-1) finished this afternoon's non-conference game against #4 Marymount (1-1-1) in a 1-1 double-overtime draw. Gabriel McEwen scored the lone goal for the Warriors in the 79th minute.
 
The Warriors had high hopes for this game as Marymount was the team that eliminated them from the national tournament last fall by a score of 3-1, but they struggled to put all the pieces together.
 
Westmont head coach Dave Wolf said, "I thought it was a disappointing (draw) for us today. I thought we were OK in a lot of areas, but not really good in anything – with the exception of our back four. I thought our back four was pretty good today."
 
The Warriors had a chance to strike first in the 22nd minute when Lucky Puengrod broke through some traffic and curved a ball from the right side with his left foot that was destined for the top right corner. Marymount's goalkeeper Ramon Garcia made one of his five saves as he pushed the ball just enough to get it to ricochet off the post and back on to the field of play.
 
Ultimately, it was Marymount that struck first in the 62nd minute. Randy Martinez took a free kick about 10 yards into Westmont's half. He served the ball into the box where Josip Mijic headed the ball into the bottom left corner of the net to give the Mariners the 1-0 advantage.
 
Westmont was able to respond in the 79th minute. Jeremiah Anderson fired a shot that was blocked by a Marymount defender. He then recovered the ball on the left side of the box, took a dribble and crossed it towards goal where McEwen finished it for his first score of the season. This brought the game to its eventual final score of 1-1.
 
The Warriors had a scary moment in the 103rd minute. Junior, captain, goalkeeper Lalo Delgado dove to his right to cover the left post and ended up banging his head on the post. The training staff came on the field and eventually carted him off.
 
Wolf said, "We were glad to see some movement and see him able to stand up under his own power. He smacked the post pretty hard. You have to be thinking about the possibility of concussion and stuff in and around the neck area. We'll treat that situation with the utmost care and putting his safety first moving forward."
 
Delgado is coming off a week in which he made 22 saves through two games – the best performance in a week by a goalkeeper in Warrior history.  
The Warriors held onto the possession for the majority of the game but were unable to muster any late-game magic in the two overtime periods. "We've probably edged the possession statistic in all the games that we've played in the regular season so far. We just don't like real likely to score.
 
"We broke Jerry free a couple times with some one-twos in and around the box. That was probably our best tactic today. Outside of those one or two moments, there really wasn't a lot to get excited about," added Wolf.
 
In the back line, freshman KC Smith made his first collegiate start and played all 110 minutes. "KC may have been the best player on the day for us. He played well and he looked the part today. He's playing out of position too. He's playing as the right center back and he's left-footed," noticed Wolf.
 
In regards to the attacking and the team as a whole Wolf said, "One thing that we lack a little bit collectively is confidence. If you see a good attacking player, usually what you see is a player that has confidence. You see a player who thinks he's the best player on the field. I think you see qualities in our guys: speed, technical ability, and vision. What you don't see is a high degree of confidence.
 
"We have smatterings of things that we can look at, but it's not necessarily clear what the cohesive aspect of the group is – especially the group attacking. It may be just a matter of trying to forge the chemistry piece. I'm looking for ways to make this team better and I'm not coming up with an easy answer to that question," finished Wolf.
 
The Warriors will return to the pitch this coming Monday in a non-conference game against La Sierra. Kickoff is scheduled for 3:00 p.m.