On Saturday, October 21, The Saint Xavier Men’s Soccer team played the Governors State Jaguars. The game went into double overtime, but in the end, nobody would score. The game ended in a scoreless draw. This draw makes Saint Xavier’s record 6-5-2 overall and 5-2-1 in the conference.
The game was back and forth early on with both teams getting shots before the 10th minute. In the 11th minute, SXU would get lucky when a header from Governors State just missed by hitting the crossbar. Later in the first half Christian Nava had a very good shot on goal, but the Jaguars’ goalie, Saahil Kapoor made a crucial save. The half would end tied at zero with both teams missing on key chances.
Governors State started off the second half strong. They won themselves a corner kick in the 50th minute, but this led to nothing. The Cougars got their second big chance at a goal in the 59th minute when Fabian Lopez curled a shot at the net but Kapoor made another great save.
The Jaguars responded to SXU’s chance with a chance of their own. In the 64th minute, Governors State forced SXU goalkeeper Alan Garcia to make a save to keep the match tied.
In the 75th minute, Saint Xavier would get their best chance of the match. The Cougars won a corner kick and off of it, Michael Gutierrez would have a header in front of the goal. The goalkeeper wasn’t in a position to make the save but the ball hit off the top of the crossbar. This was a gut punch to SXU and right after things got much worse when Alex Noyola was given a red card in the 76th minute. SXU would now be reduced to ten men for the rest of the match, however, The Cougars offense wasn’t done yet.
In the 79th minute, SXU won yet another corner and this time Victor Valencia got a shot off, however it was the same result as the last corner as the shot didn’t even reach the goalkeeper this time.
Late in the second half, the Cougars got even more chances even forcing Kapoor to make a save in the 86th minute and just missing the net wide in the 89th minute. This was the Cougars’ last chance to win in regulation as the game went into overtime.
In the first overtime period not much happened, there was only one shot and it was hit wide of the net again by Cesar Correa.
The second overtime started off with a bang, in the 102nd minute Angel Lopez had yet another shot on goal but Kapoor got his 5th save of the day. This would be SXU’s last chance to win the game because in the 110th they would accumulate their second red card and the game would end in a 0-0 tie.
This game is nothing short of a disaster for The Cougars. They outshot Governors State 16-9, yet they couldn’t put their shots on goal and would end up only having five-shot hit the target.
The main positive that could be taken out of this game is another great goalkeeping performance by Alan Garcia. Garcia kept a clean sheet and even had three saves. If he is anything short of perfect SXU would have come away with a loss.
The Cougars’ next home game will be on October 26, at Deaton Field against Robert Morris University.
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