No. 22 Lopes close preseason with big win

Friday, August 20

Phoenix, Ariz.

7 p.m.

Grand Canyon

Arizona Christian

8/21/2021 11:04:00 AM | Men's Soccer

Quintent of Lopes score in 6-1 win over Arizona Christian

By: Sierra Smith

The Grand Canyon men's soccer team took down local foe Arizona Christian 6-1 in a Friday night exhibition at GCU Stadium.

"I'm happy with the performance," GCU head coach Leonard Griffin said. "Obviously, the result is good when you look at the scoreboard but, more importantly, some of the things that we've been training are starting to come out more in terms of our defensive press and some of the ways we want to try and build in the style of play. So that was good to see. It's a lot to build on and hopefully our guys are flying coming into Thursday next week."

The Lopes' six goals came from five players, including sophomore forward Maximilian Moeller, fifth-year forward Tosh Yasuda, sophomore midfielder Edgar Soto, junior midfielder Charles Noyelle and fifth-year midfielder Justin Rasmussen with two goals.

"It's a good problem for a coach to have," Griffin said. "You always want to have depth and I think this preseason we were able to find a lot of guys that can contribute, especially in the attack."

Moeller got the offense going at the 8:42 mark with a header off a cross by Rasmussen.

In the 17th minute, fifth-year midfielder Marco Afonso set up the second goal by finding Moeller down the line. Then, the sophomore found Rasmussen open just on top of the penalty box. Rasmussen found the back of the net with a right-footed strike in the upper-right corner of the goal.

GCU pushed the lead to 3-0 after Yasuda received the perfect through ball from junior Shaun Joash and beat Arizona Christian's goalkeeper to the ball.

Four minutes into the second half, Rasmussen made a short pass to Yasuda while taking a corner kick and with a tapback to Rasmussen, the preseason All-American scored his second goal of the match.

Arizona Christian's Sebastian Nicula saved the Firestorm from getting shut out by scoring off a header on a free kick.

GCU's Soto answered quickly when Afonso's cross into the 6-yard box deflected off the Firestorm goalkeeper for an easy tap-in.

The sixth and final Lopes goal of the night came from Noyelle, who made a penalty kick after being fouled inside the penalty box.

"We feel confident," Griffin said. "We want to have two starters in every position, if possible. I think we have guys in a starting group and right behind them that are going to push each other every single day and make a very competitive environment and, at the end of the day, make our jobs really hard. So it's a good problem to have. I'm excited about it."

GCU starts its regular season at home on Thursday against Illinois-Chicago. The opener is set to kick off at 7 p.m.