Fresno Pacific Athletics

The Fresno Pacific men's soccer team fell to NCAA DIII UC Santa Cruz 4-3 in overtime Tuesday afternoon following a rollercoaster of a game. FPU's Guilherme Machado, Rodrigo Vianna Ferreira, and Paul Islas each scored a goal in the loss as the Sunbirds drop to 4-4-1.

The #4 ranked Banana Slugs (10-0-1) scored first on a 20th minute goal by CJ Villalobos, as the first half ended competitively with each team recording eight shots a piece, and UCSC leading 1-0.

Despite going behind, the Sunbirds came out firing to begin the second half of play and got on the board in the 52nd minute off Machado's strike. Just a minute later, Vianna added to the Sunbird tally scoring a team-high ninth goal of the campaign to give FPU the 2-1 lead.

UC Santa Cruz equalized in the 63rd minute off a Daniel Seltzer strike, but Fresno Pacific freshman Paul Islas netted less than 10 minutes later in the 75th to help FPU retake the lead at 3-2.

With time running out and the Sunbirds ahead, Islas had one more good attempt at goal that could have potentially killed the game off for FPU, but placed the ball just over the crossbar on the shot.

To the Sunbirds chagrin, UCSC's Alika Okamitsu netted in the 86th minute to make it a 3-3 match.

Bad went to worse for FPU just before full-time when senior Edison Gonzalez was issued a red card for delay of game/decent after kicking the ball away from the spot a foul was called on FPU. Having received a yellow card earlier in the game, Gonzalez was given the red card, thus reducing the Sunbirds to 10 men for the remaining few minutes and the overtime periods.

Aaron Surry scored the game winner for the Banana Slugs in the 100th minute on an unassisted goal to give UCSC the 4-3 overtime victory.

"It was a great game," said FPU head coach Jaime Ramirez. "We are scoring some beautiful goals, but it's disappointing that we haven't been able to take care of our defensive responsibilities."