Men’s Soccer team clinched the Northwest Conference Title for the first time in six years
The men’s soccer team clinched the conference championship this weekend with a 2-0 win over George Fox. The soccer team is the first of the three Logger teams (men’s soccer, women’s soccer and volleyball) to take the championship.
George Fox only had one total shot on goal, as opposed to the seven for the Loggers. The Logger defense did a great job making it really tough on the George Fox team; the Puget Sound goalie only had to block one shot in the entirety of the match.
Puget Sound senior mid-fielder Carson Swope (Portland, Ore) and senior defensive man Eneko Bereziartua (Boise, ID) scored the two goals.
Bereziartua was the first to score, midway into the first minute. This fast start gave Puget Sound the control in the game that they needed. They were able to focus on keeping George Fox at bay.
The second goal happened in the 26th minute by Swope. This allowed a 2-0 lead in the first half. Swope scored on a beautifully curved penalty kick and created a sizable gap between the two teams.
The defense was the true hero of the day, however. It felt like George Fox could not even set up a decent chance to score. Puget Sound guarded everyone to perfection.
The whole second half, the Loggers only allowed two shots and none on goal by George Fox. This is coming off a string of great defensive games for the Loggers. This is their sixth game in a row that resulted in a shutout.
This will give Puget Sound a huge advantage in the playoffs because of their high seed. Puget Sound will play the lowest seed in their bracket because they won the conference. This means that we should have a few should wins before they have to face the more challenging teams. If we continue playing like this, there is no doubt that we can be successful.
In the past the Loggers have been edged out of the top 25 rankings, but now that they have won the conference they should move up to one of the higher rankings.
This will be their fourth Northwest Conference (NWC) championship under Head Coach Reece Olney. However, this championship is coming after a six-year drought of no title wins.
This will set up well for senior night on Sunday, Nov. 3.
Them winning signifies the first team of the fall to clinch the conference. They have handled themselves very well in the conference. Their record against conference opponents thus far is 12-1. Their onslaught has proved successful, and it is time to take their talent to beat other conference teams.
Unfortunately, out of conference they are below: 500 at 2-3. However, if they can turn this trend into beating some of the other great non-conference teams in the playoffs there is no reason why Puget Sound cannot compete for the title. It certainly looks promising with their current five-game winning streak. .
The men’s soccer team started the hopeful trend for Northwest Conference championships. Now that the men’s team has clinched, it is up to the other two teams in contention for the Northwest Conference championship to finish off an amazing fall for Puget Sound athletics.
The women’s soccer team is on their way with a big win Sunday, over Linfield. They now are sitting in the drivers seat in first place to take the conference next week. The big star was sophomore Amalia Acrda-Few with two big goals to give Puget Sound the padding needed to beat challenging Linfield.
