Bryan BeilkeIt looked as if the Cal Poly men’s soccer team had a Big West Conference match against No. 20 UC Irvine all but wrapped up.
But a 90th-minute foul in the box by Mustangs senior Julian Alvarez set up a penalty kick that the Anteaters’ Matt Murphy was able to capitalize on to send the game to overtime.
With neither team scoring in the ensuing periods, the Mustangs and Anteaters split a pair of scores for a 1-1 tie Wednesday night at Alex G. Spanos Stadium.
“We just lost two points tonight,” said Mustangs head coach Paul Holocher. “We had the win and we gave it away.”
Cal Poly goalkeeper Eric Branagan-Franco was surprised by the late-game call that set up the penalty kick.
“It had been a pretty physical game the whole night,” he said. “I mean, me getting studs pretty much in the chest on a kick in the middle, I’m pretty surprised he called it. Sometimes you get a tough break but you can’t blame it on the ref. We had other opportunities. We just didn’t put them away.”
The game drew a combined 13 fouls and two yellow cards.
The Anteaters’ Carlos Aguilar drew the first card in the 73rd minute when he spiked Branagan-Franco, who was in mid-air attempting to fetch a save. The second was called on Cal Poly defender Josh Didion in the 109th minute while the Anteaters were in transition.
The score was locked at 0-0 at the conclusion of the first half and the Mustangs had tallied two shots on goal to UC Irvine’s one. The Anteaters came out shooting in the second, and were able to fire six shots on goal in its first 20 minutes.
Branagan-Franco retrieved 11 saves during the match, a figure that puts him third in Cal Poly history for saves in a game.
“They’re ranked 20th for something,” Branagan-Franco said.
The Mustangs were able to net their single goal in the 77th minute when an Alvarez corner kick found freshman defender Pat Sigler’s head before sophomore David Zamora was able finish the set play with a header to the back-right of the net to put Cal Poly up 1-0.
Alvarez’s assist put him tied at No. 5 all-time at Cal Poly for career assists with Tony Chowana-Bandhu.
“When we scored the goal, I thought we lost a little bit of our composure,” Holocher said. “Some of it has to do with us not doing a better job of dealing with that pressure at the end of the game.”
With the draw, the Mustangs moved into a tie for second place in the Big West with UC Santa Barbara, behind conference frontrunner UC Davis, which beat now-fourth place Cal State Northridge 3-2 Wednesday night.
The Mustangs will square off at Cal State Northridge at 2 p.m. Saturday.
“The toughest part of our schedule is coming up, and I just hope that we find a little something else in us,” Holocher said.