Golden Goal Halts Broncos Championship Bid One Round Short
PITTSBURGH – It’s never easy to close the chapter on another season, and for the Cal Poly Pomona men’s soccer team, they could nearly taste a trip to the NCAA Division II Championship match.
For good swaths of the action from Highmark Stadium, Broncos appeared poised to advance to the finale. Their third semifinal appearance in the last four years, Cal Poly Pomona saw this same fate just one season ago, as West Chester snatched a come-from-behind victory to end the year for the CCAA champions in the season’s penultimate match on a chilly Thursday afternoon in the Steel City.
The Broncos struck first in the semifinal matchup against West Chester after Eduardo Faria headed in a ball for Omer Green to put Cal Poly Pomona on top. But just five minutes later the Golden Rams were able to equalize after Eric Greer found the back of the net for his first goal of the year. The play started with a corner kick, and Greer snatched a rebound near the top of the box and one-timed it in to knot the contest.
The game remained a stalemate for the remainder of the second period, but momentum appeared to shift to West Chester as time wore on beyond the game-tying goal. Both teams peppered a flurry of shots in the final 10 minutes of regulation, but a golden-goal overtime came into play.
Just past four minutes into the extra period, Jason Pixley’s header off the cross from Daniel Grindrod sailed beyond Cal Poly Pomona keeper Jakob Hansen to cap the Broncos season with a 17-7 overall record. West Chester now advances to the NCAA Championship where they’ll take on Barry on Saturday.
Staistically, the Broncos held the 15-10 advantage on shorts, including nine attempts for Cal Poly Pomona in the second half. Corner kicks also went the way of Cal Poly Pomona, by a final tally of 8-3. Hansen closed his career in green and gold with three saves on the day, while Will Marshall came up with five stops for the West Chester defense.