The men’s soccer team had a dynamic start to their season with a 5-2 win against Bethesda College. This marks the first year that Biola has played against Bethesda.
Junior midfielder Joey O’Keefe put Biola on the board with a header in the fourth minute of the game after an assist from freshman defender Clayton Mohler. Biola scored again in the eighth minute when junior forward Stephen Tanquary snuck the ball past the defense off a rebound to put Biola in the lead 2-0.
“We like to play a lot of possession and also like to play a lot of high press and I think that resulted in a lot of mistakes from their backline,” junior midfielder John Hanscom said. “Coming into this game we wanted to play our game and play the possession style and when we didn’t have the ball we wanted to pressure them to get the ball back as quickly as possible.”
The Eagles put up a solid wall of defense to deny the three shots Bethesda attempted. However, Bethesda took full advantage of free kicks and used them to score their only goals of the match. Midfielder Junmo Ryu gave Bethesda their first point in the 23rd minute off a free kick to lessen the Eagles’ lead to one goal.
Bethesda’s second goal came in the second half from forward Lazaro Santos to tie up the game at two. However, freshman midfielder True Tamplin scored his first goal for Biola a minute later to give Biola the lead 3-2.
“We had a lot of newcomers come in today,” Hanscom said. “It was really awesome to see this new, fresh blood strengthening our returners which was really important for us.”
The Eagles momentum continued as Tanquary scored his second goal of the match in the 62nd minute with an assist from freshman forward Keaton Kerr.
Biola pushed one more goal past the Flames’ defense in the 73rd minute with a free kick from Senior midfielder Sava Pantic.
The Eagles have one goal in mind for the season: to win the Golden State Athletic Conference Championship and go on to the NAIA National Championship. Last season the Eagles lost the GSAC championship match against conference rival Concordia University Irvine. This year they are determined to accomplish the goal they set back in 2013.
“We want to win the GSAC Tournament, and we want go to the National tournament,” Tanquary said. “We’re hungry, and we are ready to make that happen this year.”
The Eagles next match will be against Marymount College at Long Beach City College on Thursday, Sept. 4 at 4:30 p.m.
