In the NCCAA West Region semifinal on Saturday, Nov. 16, the Azusa Pacific men’s soccer team swarmed the Arizona Christian Firestorm with offensive attacks, firing 21 shots and 14 shots on goal, six of which found the back of the net in the Cougars’ 6-0 victory.
Throughout the first 30 minutes, the Cougars continued to find chances through their offense. The more they attacked, the more the Firestorm’s defense broke down. In the 39th minute, senior midfielder Steven Shiokari skipped a dribbler into the bottom left corner after weaving through the Firestorm defense.
“It took the whole game to do it, and the first 20 minutes was tough,” head coach Dave Blomquist said. “We were searching for an opening, they were defending really well, and we couldn’t find it, but over the 90 minutes, we were able to create enough spaces to get in and score the goals.”
Just two minutes later, senior midfielder Oktay Bulut took the ball down to the endline and bent it over Arizona Christian’s goalkeeper into the far corner to make the score 2-0.
Senior defender Garrett Mehrguth returned to the field for the Cougars after missing two months due to a knee injury. He picked up his aggressive style and dealt a nice assist by way of a cross to the right side where sophomore forward Keenan Armbrust received it and fired it into the top-right corner for a goal, bumping up the score to 3-0.
“It was great to see [Garrett] back after a couple of months out with the injury,” Blomquist said. “He’s been a big part of this program for a lot of years and he’s a senior leader, so to see him back helping us get a playoff win was really good.”
Freshman midfielder Billy Flores scored the next two goals for the Cougars with slightly more than three minutes separating the two scores. He headed his first chance in from a ball dealt off a free kick by sophomore forward Keyran Kelly and kicked the second chance in off another cross from Kelly.
Freshman forward Andrew Delaplane scored the sixth and final goal when the Firestorm goalkeeper was caught out of position. It was Delaplane’s first goal of the season.
“It’s great to have a lot of weapons and guys come off the bench; the level of the team stays high,” Blomquist said. “All year, it’s a total team effort, so to have a playoff game where a lot of guys get on and contribute and score goals speaks to the quality throughout the entire team.”
After the win, Azusa Pacific advanced to the NCCAA West Region Finals and will travel to Fresno to face Fresno Pacific Thursday, Nov. 21. The Cougars’ last matchup with the Sunbirds was Oct. 30 at Fresno and APU lost a close game with a 2-3 score.