BROWNWOOD, Texas- Graduate defender
Cameron Phipps and senior midfielder
Xzavier Saldana led the way, as the Howard Payne University men's soccer team (5-8-2, 2-5-1) beat to the McMurry University War Hawks (7-5-1, 4-3-1) by a score of 2-1 on Saturday evening at the Citizens National Bank Soccer Field.
HPU had one of its best attacking showings of the season. The Yellow Jackets were able to put up 27 shots in the 90 minutes, with 10 of those shots registering on goal.
At halftime, the score was deadlocked, as neither team could put away their goal scoring opportunities. Sophomore midfielder
Francisco Perez shown in the engine room for Howard Payne. He kept the game ticking and contributed seven shots on goal.
In the second is when the score of the game opened up. Phipps put up an opportunity on goal in the 66
th minute that was deflected out for a corner by McMurry's goalkeeper, Enrique Cabello. On the resulting corner, Saldana struck the ball perfectly to find Phipps waiting at the post, who took this opportunity to score his second collegiate goal.
HPU's lead didn't last long. McMurry was able to score the equalizing goal off a penalty kick in the 75
th minute. The War Hawks were awarded the penalty after the referee took after look and determined that a shot had deflected off the hand of a Yellow Jacket defender.
Right after the change, freshman forward
Connor Parker, Saldana and junior midfielder
Kolby Lara returned to the action and immediately changed the momentum back into Howard Payne's favor. All three subs provided fresh legs and physicality when they returned, and the War Hawks struggled to adapt.
Perez and Saldana combined to get the Yellow Jackets game-winning goal in the 79
th minute.
On the other end of the field, sophomore goalkeeper
Adrian Villa didn't have much to do in the contest. Villa made one save.
"I'm really proud of our team in this win," head coach
Brandon McGibeny said. "Each player whether they saw the field or not was bought into the match and really throughout the week to put us in a position to succeed. This one keeps us in the hunt for hosting a playoff match but now we have to build off of this one and be hungry to go after the next one against a good ETBU side."
Up Next: The Howard Payne University men's soccer team will play their penultimate game of the season when the team travels to Marshall, Texas to play the East Texas Baptist University Tigers on Thursday, October 29 at 7:30 PM. The Yellow Jackets will hope to pick up a win against the Tigers after their earlier matchup in the season was a 0-0 draw.
