FRISCO, Texas — The No. 25 St. Mary's University Men's Soccer team sandwiched a pair of goals around two by Western Oregon to end the night in a 2-2 draw at the Toyota Soccer Center.
It is the first time this season the Rattlers (1-1-4) have scored more than one goal in a match, and they wasted no time getting on the scoreboard, as sophomore
Jamie Thompson (Insch, Scotland) found graduate student
Cooper Stephens (Richardson, Texas) in the box for a header into the top right corner of the net 90 seconds into the game for the 1-0 lead.
The score held until the 64th minute, when the Wolves (3-1-2) knotted the score. Western Oregon took the lead in the 75th minute on a line drive shot across the box by Michael Divano.
In the 87th minute, redshirt freshman
Axel Villegas (Cordoba, Mexico) threw the ball in from the bench side, straight into the box, where senior
Luke Mulkey (Parker, Texas) headed the ball into the goal. The ball was on target and ricocheted off a defender's arm for Mulkey's first goal of the season and the 2-2 tie.
Senior goalkeeper
Johnny Thurbin (Lingfield, Surrey, England) made a save with less than two minutes remaining in the game to preserve the draw. He saved three total on the night, facing 11 total shots.
StMU also took five shots in the contest, with four coming on goal, and all four were by different players.
Thurbin, Mulkey, graduate student
Pau Mateu Deya (Marratxi, Balearic Islands, Spain) and senior
AJ Valdivia (Perris, Calif.) all played the entire 90 minutes for the Gold & Blue, while the Wolves had nine stay on the pitch throughout the game.
St. Mary's faces Northwest Nazarene in the second round of the LSC-GNAC Challenge on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. The Nighthawks lost 4-2 to Midwestern State on Thursday, as the Mustangs came back from a 2-0 deficit to score four straight in the second half.
