Lions can’t overcome Cougars in overtime

AZUSA — As the rain started falling on an overcast day, the hopes of the Vanguard University men’s soccer team started washing away.

Azusa Pacific’s Brandon Stirm helped cause the landslide. He scored on a header with a minute left in the first sudden-death overtime period, lifting the Cougars to a 2-1 victory in the NAIA Region II championship game Saturday at APU.

It was a crushing loss for the Lions in their first-ever NAIA Division II championship game. Azusa Pacific (15-3-2) gets an automatic bid to the NAIA national championships, which begin Wednesday in Daytona Beach, Fla., while Vanguard (14-3-3) now has to hope for an at-large berth.

Coach Randy Dodge said after the game that Vanguard is “on the bubble” for a nationals berth.

“They scored two great goals, two header goals back post,” Dodge said. “There’s nothing you can do about that. I think we did a good job today. We just didn’t get the goals when we needed them.”

Vanguard, which had beaten Azusa Pacific, 1-0, on Oct. 7, let the Cougars control much of the action in the first half.

Azusa Pacific had three headers, by Matt Kristoff, Eric Winblad and Stirm, that went either just wide or high.

The Lions, who had three yellow cards in the first half and six on the game, saw their best first-half chance in the 39th minute, when Andrew Elliott’s long free kick required a leaping save by Azusa Pacific goalie James Crawford.

“We’re a second-half team,” said Vanguard goalie William Johnson, who finished with four saves. “We’ve been like that all year. We’ve been kind of lethargic in the first half, and I don’t know why. But in the second half, we usually make adjustments and take it to teams.”

That was the case in the 49th minute, when Vanguard’s Christopher Leiva took advantage of an Azusa Pacific miscue at midfield and subsequently beat defender Damon Brooks.

Leiva’s shot found the net, giving the Lions a 1-0 lead.

“We wanted to go to nationals, and we changed a couple of tactics and exploited them when we wanted to,” Dodge said.

But Vanguard gave it back in the 68th minute.

On a free kick from the right side, Steven Lenhart’s diving header in traffic got by Johnson to tie the game at one-all.

“We knew it was going to be a tough game,” Vanguard defender Darin DeVore said. “They’ve got two really good forwards and attacking mids. They made a mistake and we got a goal, and then we made a mistake and they got the goal back.”

The Lions’ Jeffery Cocca had a chance in the 77th minute, but his straightaway shot past a diving Crawford went just wide left.

So the game went to overtime, where Azusa Pacific almost ended it early on.

Three minutes in, Sven Simon’s through ball to Kristoff resulted in a powerful shot that Johnson just got a piece of, and the ball trickled just wide right of the Vanguard goal.

But the Lions lost it five minutes later on Dustin McBride’s cross to Stirm at the far post. Stirm’s header found the net.

Azusa Pacific held the advantage for shots on goal, 6-5. Crawford finished with four saves.

“They have height and speed and work hard,” Johnson said. “They’re annoying and they get under your skin, but they did their job today.”

It was the second time in five days that Vanguard soccer had lost to Azusa Pacific in the NAIA Region II championship game, following a 4-0 women’s soccer loss on Nov. 7.

But for Dodge, who coaches both teams, they were seasons of accomplishment.

Neither team had ever made it that far in the playoffs, and the men’s team hadn’t made the playoffs at all in 2005.

“It’s fantastic for our program,” Dodge said. “There’s not a coach that can say that across the country, that they took two teams to the regional final, and we have the strongest region in the country. Our school was able to do that, and I think that’s huge.”

The players were understandably upset after the loss. But DeVore, a senior, said he saw the whole picture.

“Right now I’m bummed about it,” he said. “But if you look back on the season, we’ve been one of the best teams in Vanguard history.”