The Tritons played their last league game of the season at home against the University of San Diego, on a sunny Sunday afternoon on Muir Field. It was a game filled with appealing storylines: it would be a bittersweet game for all of the seniors, who lined up on their home turf for the last time in the hopes of closing out their chapter on the Men’s Club soccer team on a high note. And, it would be a game that would help determine the brackets for the upcoming WCSA playoffs, which the Tritons knew they had qualified for.

Nonetheless, the Tritons knew it would be important for them to produce a good performance heading into the last tournament of the year. The starting eleven featured players who would not be expected to return next season: Oliver Rodriguez was in goal; Alejandro Covarrubias, Jaydon Galindo Lovell, and Lucas Sherles started in defense; Henry Rose, Owen Riess, Antonio Lopez, and Lucas Venetoulias were in the midfield; and Kalani Takamura, Vismay Manoj, and Nicholas Shor made up the front three. 

The game kicked off very unnervingly for both teams. Both teams struggled to maintain good possession of the ball, and the game lacked any real and consistent flow. After a couple of minutes, the Tritons managed to get a foothold of the game, beginning to assert their dominance on the ball. Apart from breakaway in which the USD striker forced a good save out of Rodriguez, USD had little offensive output against the Tritons, and their unorthodox back line left a lot to be desired. Indeed, the USD back line left big gaps on the Tritons’ left side, which the team hoped to exploit. After playing a few good cross-field switches towards Shor, who quickly realized the spaces he found himself in, the Tritons managed to create a few decent goal-scoring opportunities. Shor himself had a couple of shots on goal, and other players had shots that were deflected away or that missed the target. USD hunkered down for the rest of the half as the Tritons kept attacking and applying pressure to the USD defense, and the teams would go into the half tied at 0.

The second half kicked off flying for UCSD. They kept forcing USD to defend deeper and deeper, and with more possession of the ball, the Tritons looked very much like the team who would score the first goal. From one promising attack, Shor had a shot that was parried out for a corner. Fresh substitute David Contreras pummeled a header into the back of the net for the Tritons to take a 1-0 lead. UCSD kept pushing throughout the half for another goal but USD also would find a second wind in this match and would continue to give the Tritons scares. A USD forward got himself on the end of a promising through ball and was 1v1 with the Tritons goalkeeper, who pulled through with another big save to keep the Tritons in the lead! USD, however, kept the pressure up as the game waned, and began to get a long succession of potentially dangerous set pieces. For the most part, the UCSD defense held strong, and it looked like the Tritons would squeak through with a narrow victory. But in the dying moments of the match, an error on the halfway line meant USD had a promising counterattack. The pacey USD forward found himself running through on goal, and he finished his chance convincingly by firing his shot to the far post. The game ended in a 1-1 draw.

It was a very disappointing day for the Tritons. They knew their performance was not good enough over the course of the 90 minutes, and they would need to show more consistency at playoffs. The first 20 or so minutes of the second half proved that the Tritons can be the dominant team in every game, and it is only a matter of not losing focus during the 90 minutes. What was a bittersweet day for the seniors served as a good warning sign for what is to come for the Tritons.