After eighty-four minutes of scoreless soccer, Westmont’s Jake Joyner, a senior from SBCC and Santa Ynez High, scored an unassisted goal to give the Warriors (7-6-2 overall, 4-4-2 in Golden State Athletic Conference play) a 1-0 victory over California Baptist (7-7-3, 3-5-2) in the final regular season game for both squads. The two teams entered the day tied for sixth place.
As a result of the win, Westmont claims the sixth seed in the upcoming GSAC tournament and will play at No. 15 Vanguard (9-5-2, 7-2-1) in the first round Wednesday in Costa Mesa.
Cal Baptist will be the eighth seed in the tournament and will face top-seeded and 12th-ranked Azusa Pacific (11-3-3, 8-1-1). Azusa earned the conference regular season championship by defeating Vanguard 2-1 in double-overtime. The final goal came with less than 20 seconds remaining in the final overtime period.
Azusa and Vanguard entered the day tied for second, two points in the standings behind No. 7 Concordia (11-5-1, 8-2), which had already finished conference play. Had the Vanguard-Azusa Pacific game ended in a tie, Concordia would have won the GSAC regular season championship.
Second-seeded Concordia will host seventh-seed Biola (8-6-2, 3-5-2) in first-round action and The Master’s (10-2-4, 5-2-3), the No. 4 seed, will host fifth-seeded Fresno Pacific (9-5-1, 5-4-1).
The semifinals of the GSAC tournament will take place Saturday, with the championship game being played Nov. 15.
Ron Smith is Westmont’s sports information director.