Westmont rallies to win PacWest Title and advance to D2 NCAA Tournament
IRVINE, Calif. - It was certainly the tale of two halves, one that favored Fresno Pacific and one that was all Westmont.
It was the Warriors with the better of the two 45 minutes by just a little bit, enough to give Westmont the first ever Pacific West Conference tournament championship. The Warriors roared back for a 3-2 win over the Sunbirds, to earn the PacWest's automatic berth into the NCAA tournament.
Westmont is getting hot at just the right time. They have won five straight to improve to 12-4-4, heading into next week's NCAA Super Region 4 tournament. They will learn who they will play during Sunday's Selection Show.
The PacWest's first ever tournament championship is already one for the ages. Fresno Pacific, the No. 4 seed and underdog, scored two first half goals to take a 2-0 lead into the halftime locker room. Bryan Lopez put up the first Sunbird score at 33 minutes, and a minute and a half later, stole the ball and fed Lucas Ribeiro who deposited FPU's second goal into the lower lefthand of the net.
"Credit to Fresno Pacific, they had an unbelievable first half," said Westmont head coach Morgan Cathey. "They scored two impressive goals in transition. At halftime, we had a chance to reset and take ownership of the fact that we got beat in the first half. I was so proud of the way we reset ourselves and showed the maturity to come back."
Fresno Pacific had eight shots in the first half to Westmont's four.
But the momentum changed dramatically in the second half. Westmost started with a few dangerous opportunities before they broke through at 63:23. It was their second corner kick in a row, the first opportunity just missed. The second didn't, when Landon Amaral pulled his team within one.
Moments later at 68:48, Amaral evened the game, converting on another corner kick to tie it at 2-2. Erik Guerrero was involved with an assist on each.
The Warriors kept the pressure on, and another development shifted the momentum further with about 20 minutes left. A red card left the Sunbirds a man down the rest of the way, and Westmont accelrated their attack. Connor Lynch had a point blank shot blocked at 87:12, but his second attempt a little over a minute later found the net, off another assist from Guerrero and Cash Anderholt.
The Warriors had 16 second half shots and FPU had three.
"We had our chances," said FPU head coach Cameron Shahrokhi. "But we had an amazing run to get to this point. No one expected us to be here, and this serves as confidence builder and motivation for next year."
It was quite a run for the No. 4 seeded Sunbirds, who qualified for the tournament on the final week of the regular season. Fresno Pacific, who finished in sixth place in the conference standings, won six of their final eight games coming into the championship. Their season ends at 8-7-5.
(Article courtesy of PacWest Conference)
