Westmont conceded an early goal and that was the difference, as the Warriors suffered a 1-0 men’s soccer defeat at UC Merced on Wednesday.
In the seventh minute, Artemio Contreras found the back of the net for the Bobcats for the lone goal of the day. Juan Flores was credited with the assist.
“They were on top of us early and put us under a tremendous amount of pressure,” Westmont coach Dave Wolf said. “We didn’t cope with it real well, either in terms of our technical execution or our decision making. They turned us over and were able to turn that into an early goal. That has been a little bit of our undoing so far in this young season.”
Goalkeeper Lalo Delgado kept the Bobcats from opening up a larger lead, making nine saves in the match.
“I thought Lalo was really good today. He was really engaged in the game and I think that’s a real credit to his character,” Wolf said. “Obviously, we’ve had a couple pretty tough outings in terms of conceding goals thus far. I was very proud of not only how he played but also how he led.
The Bobcats fired 19 shots – 11 of which were on target. The Warriors struggled to get five shots off and only two were on target.
“We never looked super dangerous in the final third. We got to the final third a bunch, but we never looked likely to do anything once we got there. Our score line of zero, I think it’s reflective of the quality that we had in the final third of the field – it wasn’t enough,” said Wolf.