Lopes surrender two late goals, home win streak snapped

Sunday, September 17

Phoenix, Ariz.

7:00 p.m.

Grand Canyon

2-5

CSUN

5-2

CSUN

Grand Canyon

Photo by: Slaven Gujic

Lopes surrender two late goals, home win streak snapped

9/17/2017 9:01:00 PM | Men's Soccer

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GCU forced to play with 10 men for final 35 minutes

By: Josh Hauser

PHOENIX - After a red card issuing in the 56th minute, GCU held a 2-2 score with CSUN despite being down a man. The Matadors finally broke through, however, scoring twice in the final 10 minutes and handing GCU its first home loss of the season on Sunday night. The Lopes' five-match winning streak on the home pitch was snapped.

With the teams deadlocked at 2, Grand Canyon (2-5) took a free kick in the 56th minute. An odd deflection led to a quick-developing CSUN (5-2) run-out on the counter attack. In a one-on-one matchup between Jordan Slack and CSUN's Daniel Trejo, the players got tangled up with the red card being issued to Slack. For the final 34 minutes, the Lopes were tasked with playing 10-v-11.

"I thought it was a pretty good game both ways before we were down a man," head coach Schellas Hyndman said. "We went back and played and tried to compact the field. When you're down a man, it's really hard to score a goal, especially against a good team. It was just waves and waves of opportunities. We held strong in the middle, but we couldn't get enough people out there on the flanks."

GCU's top two goal-scorers were limited on Sunday, with Niki Jackson being held out of the match altogether and Damian German not being able to finish out the match. German did manage to pick up an assist for his seventh point of the weekend.

The match got off to a very quick start with both teams scoring in the first 10 minutes. In the fourth, senior Aidan McGlothan scored his second career goal, less than five minutes in game time since scoring his first career goal on Thursday. A Charlie Keating header was deflected by the keeper and landed right at the feet of McGlothan for the score.

GCU's 1-0 lead was short-lived with the Matadors scoring just two minutes later. CSUN scored on a throw-in from the left corner. As time ran out in the first period, CSUN scored again to take a 2-1 lead into the break.

Right out of the gate in the second period, GCU found the equalizer. Musa Morris Demos scored the first goal of his GCU career on a cross in from the left by Marco Afonso and a toe-tap by German.

"I thought Marco played a good game and Musa scored a good goal," Hyndman said. "I thought Josh did everything we expected him to do. When you look at our team, having Niki (Jackson) off the field really kills us."

The match remained tied for nearly 40 minutes. The Matadors scored two late goals after wearing down GCU's defense who was down a man.

Grand Canyon is beginning to wrap up its non-conference schedule. Entering the weekend, the Lopes' strength of schedule was among the 10 toughest in the nation.

"We knew it was going to be difficult," Hyndman said. "Playing on the road, a couple overtime games that didn't go our way, and then picking up the injuries. It's a little frustrating for us, but I think the non-conference has made us tougher."

The non-conference schedule concludes at GCU Stadium on Friday as the Lopes welcome in Oral Roberts. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. MST.