CALIFORNIA, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University men's soccer team played its way to a 0-0 tie at California (Pa.) Tuesday night in Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference competition.
With the tie, Slippery Rock extends its unbeaten streak to two games and its overall record 1-2-1 and its PSAC mark to 1-0-1. California moves to 3-0-1 overall and 1-0-1 in league play. Tuesday's result was the first tie for The Rock since the 2013 season (42 games). Slippery Rock is now 4-1-3 in overtime games over the last four seasons.
Through four games Slippery Rock has allowed just two goals. That total is tied for the second lowest amount of goals allowed by a Rock team over its first four games since 1983; the 2009 SRU squad gave up one goal to start the year.
Kyle Boyer tallied a team-high three shots, one of which was on goal, against California.
Adolfo Segura,
Justin Minda and
George Oakley also had shots with Segura's lone attempt being on target as well.
Steven Rerick started his first game of the season and made five saves to help The Rock preserve the tie. Rerick is now 2-0-1 all-time against California with 17 saves and one goal allowed over 290 minutes versus the Vulcans.
Tuesday's game started slow for The Rock's offensive attack as SRU did not record its first shot on goal of the game until 40:25 when Segura's bid was saved by Vulcan goalkeeper Lucas Exner.
However, Slippery Rock kept California, which entered the game ranked fourth in PSAC in goals scored, in check on the other end of the field as The Rock successfully cleared the Vulcans' first two corners while giving up just one shot on goal of their own, a header by Mike Cummings that was saved by Rerick in the 22nd minute. After 45 minutes of play, Slippery Rock and California headed into halftime in a scoreless tie.
The Vulcans tallied three shots and a corner over the opening 20 minutes of the second half, but SRU was once against able to defend the corner while Rerick stopped one of the shots with the other two sailing off target to keep the game knotted at 0-0 at the 61:22 mark.
Slippery Rock's attack finally came alive in the 69th minute when Oakley registered The Rock's second shot of the game followed by another shot from
Justin Minda under two minutes later as well as a third attempt off the foot of Boyer at 71:27. However, the shots by Oakley and Minda were both blocked by Vulcan defenders and Exner was able to stop Boyer's attempt, as the contest remained scoreless with under 14 minutes to play.
California peppered The Rock's zone with seven shots inside the final 10 minutes of regulation, but Rerick stopped the only two shots that were on goal to send the game into overtime.
Slippery Rock earned a corner kick 56 seconds into the opening overtime period, but was unable to turn it into a scoring opportunity. The Vulcans answered back with a corner of its own in the 93rd minute, which led to a Mike Cummings shot that was saved by Rerick to keep The Rock alive. California tallied one more shot that went high and the game went into a second overtime.
Boyer got off the only two shots for either team in the second overtime, but both attempts went wide as The Rock and Vulcans settled for a tie and one point each in the conference standings.
Slippery Rock continues PSAC place 1 p.m. Saturday at No. 25 Millersville University.
