SEATTLE, Wash. – The Northwest Nazarene men's soccer team came out flat Thursday and Seattle Pacific made them pay.
The Nighthawks lost 5-2 to the Falcons at Interbay Stadium in Great Northwest Athletic Conference action and trailed 3-0 at halftime.
"We started the game playing very timid," NNU coach
Adam Pearce said. "We have not earned the respect of our conference members yet and justifiably so. You could tell they thought it was a chance to get a result and so they came out hungry and aggressive and they got all over it."
The Falcons scored in the seventh, 11th and 40th minutes to take the 3-0 scoreline into halftime.
In the second half, NNU (4-4-0 overall, 0-2-0 GNAC) controlled possession more and thanks to a
Lorenzo Valentini penalty kick goal in the 58th appeared to have a bit of life.
"We were going for the game at 3-1 and then got the red card and that really compromises you a lot," Pearce said. "We came out of halftime with some enthusiasm and something to prove to ourselves and attacked them and we had greater possession of the ball."
Defender
Danny Cuevas got a pair of yellow cards in the span of 68 seconds and was ejected in the 71st minute. Playing up a man, the Falcons (2-5-1, 1-2-0) then scored twice in 20 seconds in the 81st minute to put the game away.
Valentini added his second goal in the 87th minute off a pass from
Braeden Anderson, slotting the ball into the lower right part of the goal.
"Lorenzo was the captain today and is really establishing the standard competitively for Nighthawks men's soccer," Pearce said. "Aside from the result tonight, his leadership, performance and competitiveness was impressive and is certainly something for others to model and emulate."
The Nighthawks play at 4 p.m. MDT on Saturday at Saint Martin's, which has the best offense in the conference with 23 goals in 10 games. Forward Brandon Madsen has scored 10 goals this season.
"When we are committed to what we are trying to accomplish tactically and competitively, then we can compete with our conference opponents," Pearce said. "Quite frankly, we were better than them in the second half. We have to go into Saint Martin's with the confirmation that when we are focused and put our best effort forward we can compete."
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