Titans deny ‘Eaters
UC Irvine men’s soccer coach Chris Volk said his team had a bone to pick with officials’ decisions that factored into a 1-0 Big West Conference loss to visiting Cal State Fullerton on Wednesday.
The setback, which denies the Anteaters a chance to win the conference’s South Division, will be a bone they can chew on for a couple days as they prepare for their regular-season finale on Saturday at home against Cal State Northridge.
But a UC Riverside loss at Cal State Northridge on Wednesday ultimately threw the Anteaters the postseason bone they were looking for, as they clinched one of three South Division berths into the six-team Big West tournament.
Frustration was rampant during the contest, as well as immediately following the final whistle, when UCI players and coaches approached the officials to express their displeasure over a hand ball in the box that led to the Titans’ game-winning penalty kick in the 70th minute.
UCI junior defender Michael Sperber said two potential hand-ball violations in the box by Fullerton were not called, adding to the Anteaters’ dismay.
“Unfair tonight; unjust,” Volk said forcefully after learning that senior midfielder Gerardo Gonzalez was issued a second yellow card for a postgame gesture directed at an official. The two yellow cards in one game create an automatic red card, meaning Gonzalez must sit out Saturday on senior night.
“It was a tough loss and we didn’t have anywhere near our best performance of the year,” Sperber said. “But the ref should have called two PKs, no matter what, and at least one would have put us back in the game.”
Volk was in total agreement.
“It was a shame that the game was decided by a penalty kick,” Volk said. “I think, deservedly, there could have been one called for us as well.”
The hand ball that was called allowed senior Julian Okai to bury the PK for his second goal of the season, his first game-winner.
“It was questionable,” Titans Coach George Kuntz, who formerly led the UCI program, said of the hand-ball call that led to the PK.
Volk said his team never should have let it come to that.
“I think that [penalty kick] is a bone of contention, so to speak,” said Volk, whose team was blanked for the second time in 11 games (both by Fullerton), but has now failed to score in six games this season. “We had our chances in the box. [The Titans] defended well and we weren’t opportunistic enough to put one chance in during the run of play. If you are going to rely on calls to determine the outcome of the game, it’s not in your hands.”
Fullerton, which halted a two-game losing streak, improved to 10-7-1, 5-3-1 in conference. The Titans are three points ahead of Cal State Northridge heading into the final regular-season game.
UCI (5-10-3, 3-4-1), which had won two straight and three of its last four, can clinch the No. 2 spot in the Southern Division by beating Cal State Northridge on Saturday. A win would create a second-place tie, but UCI will have won both games with the Matadors, giving the ‘Eaters the tiebreaker and the much-coveted home game in the first round of the conference tournament. The No. 2 teams in each division play host to the No. 3 team in the opposite division, with the winner advancing to meet one of two division champions in the semifinals.
Fullerton posted an 11-6 advantage in shots and UCI junior goalkeeper Elliot Farmer made the most impressive save of the night. Farmer, filling in for injured senior Michael Breslin (ankle), jutted his left leg out while charging off his line for a point-blank stop of a shot by explosive freshman forward Brandon West in the 44th minute.
Farmer made six saves, while Titans keeper David Rodriguez Elias had only one.
“We know we’re in the Big West tournament and we have a game to play on Saturday night,” Volk said. “We have to go on a pretty good run here to [win the conference tournament and get an automatic NCAA tournament bid], but we have the talent and the quality.”
Added Sperber: “We’ve had every obstacle you can imagine [this season] and this is just another little bump we have to get over. It’s the most frustrating year of my life, but we have to keep fighting. It’s good for our character. I know we can get [to the NCAA Tournament].”