A penalty kick goal turned out to be the difference in the game as The Master's lost their conference opener to the Soka Lions 3-2 Saturday at Reese Field.
Despite out-shooting the Lions 18-10, the Mustangs (1-3-1, 0-1) could not get a tying goal before the clock went to 0:00.
Head Coach Jim Rickard said after the game giving up 14 goals in five games puts too much pressure on an offense to get four to five goals a game.
"At the end of the day, when you make mistakes and the other team punishes you for it, that's the mark of a solid team," Coach Rickard said. "And they punished us for our mistakes. That was the difference in the game."
With 9:45 to play in the game, an errant TMU pass was intercepted by Soka's Rudy Garcia. He went one-on-one with Mustangs goalkeeper
Julian Graham, with the latter getting called for a foul inside the penalty box. The resulting PK from Armando Carrera turned out to be the game winner.
But before that it was a matter of answers by The Master's offense that gave hope to the near capacity crowd for a home-team win. After Soka's Justin Wu scored 17:24 into the game,
Trent Rickard netted his conference-leading ninth goal of the season, off an assist from
Peyton Gorans, in the 27th minute to tie it at 1-1.
Rickard has scored in every game played by the Mustangs so far this season.
A little more than 10 minutes into the second half, Garcia lifted the Lions to a 2-1 lead. But that was answered by
Kai Terentieff in the 74th minute when he headed in a shot off a pass from
Braden Krusey to knot the score once again.
Less than seven minutes later was when the penalty kick turned into a game-winner for Soka.
Rickard finished with 10 shots, four of which were on goal.
The Master's will have two road games this week starting with a trip to Riverside, Calif. Thursday to take on the La Sierra Golden Eagles at 7:30 p.m. That will be followed by a Saturday afternoon game at Irvine Great Park against the Hope International Royals, the defending GSAC champions, at 12 p.m.
