DALLAS – On paper, the match could not have been any closer as the St. Mary's University and Dallas Baptist University Men's Soccer teams fought to a 1-1 draw on Wednesday night.
Each team scored once and put four shots on goal, with the Rattlers (9-4-2, 5-1-2) edging out the Patriots (6-3-6, 2-1-5) in shots 15-to-14, while DBU was whistled for two more fouls, 7-to-5 in a cleanly played contest.
"Honestly, it's another disappointing night for us," said Head Coach
Johnny Clifford. "We went up early and really took a hold of the game, but in the second half we let them make the game far too transitional and we fell into that kind of football for a while. Still, we created several good chances to win in the last 15 minutes and failed to take them, so this is on us."
The Rattlers struck first as sophomore
Sebastian Poblete (Kendall West, Fla.) scored his eighth goal of the year, finding the back of the net in the seventh minute. Freshman
Mekhi Carwise (Nolanville, Texas), making his first start in Lone Star Conference play, and the second of his career, found a streaking
AJ Valdivia (Perris, Calif) down the sideline. Valdivia put a perfect cross into the box and Poblete headed it into the lower right corner for the 1-0 advantage.
The score remained 1-0 until the 62nd minute, when Erik Oliveira took a shot off a long throw in, then grabbed his own rebound off
Nichita Misac's (Lisbon, Portugal) gloves and booted it into the top left corner to knot the score at 1-1.
The Rattlers had four shots, with two on goal in the final six minutes, but DBU keeper Sean Mattvi was able to save both to keep the game a draw.
St. Mary's has two games remaining in the regular season, hosting West Texas A&M on Saturday at 7 p.m. for Senior Night as the second half of a doubleheader on campus with the Volleyball team, and then they travel to Midwestern State for the regular-season finale on Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. The Rattlers are currently in third place in the LSC standings with 17 points, three points behind the Mustangs, and two points back from Oklahoma Christian.
