October 21, 2007

Fullerton upsets UCD soccer
By Chris Saur/Enterprise staff writer

In most sports, clearly outplaying an opponent almost always leads to a victory.

Because soccer is a low-scoring game, it is more common for the outcome to go the other way. And those situations are all the more frustrating.

The UC Davis men came into Saturday’s game against Cal State Fullerton as the favorite and then played like it for the entire game, but the Titans still found a way to come out on top of a 2-1 score at Aggie Soccer Stadium.

The win was Fullerton’s first in Big West Conference play as the Titans (5-7-2, 1-4-2) got two goals from Shay Spitz to stun the Aggies (7-4-2, 2-3-1).

“We played as well as we wanted to but they got fortunate a couple of times,” said UCD junior Sule Anibaba, a David High graduate. “We didn’t overlook them. We came out and played well. That was a frustrating game.”

While Fullerton played well, the Aggies possessed the ball near the Titans goal for much of the contest, including most of the second half. UCD outshot Fullerton 21-9 and had eight corner kick opportunities, none of which panned out. The Aggies got their only goal on a direct kick from Dylan Curtis at the 67:10 mark of the contest.

“I feel for the guys because I felt like they played great soccer for the majority of the match,” UCD coach Dwayne Shaffer said. “If you get dominated by an opponent it is not as hard to accept but when you play well and have all of those opportunities it is really tough.”

In the first half, the Aggies missed four high quality chances to score and the trend continued after halftime. Anibaba had a pair of good shots miss their mark early in the second half and a few minutes later forward Quincy Amarikwa rushed a shot against an open net and missed wide.

Spitz finally broke the scoreless drought a minute later when he sent a direct kick into traffic and it bounced in front of the goal before sneaking past Ryan McCowan, the UCD goal keeper. After Curtis tied it, Spitz scored the winning goal after losing a defender with a nifty move and then sending the ball to the far post with just 16 minutes left in the game.

“It is tough to lose at home but they have a good team and some really great players,” Shaffer said. “That was the bottom team in the conference but that just shows how tough every game is in the Big West.”

As a final addition to the Aggies offensive frustration, UCD had two solid opportunities in the final minute but Titans keeper Brent Douglas made a diving stop on one of the shots and the other hit the post.