FRESNO, Calif. - To kickoff conference play the Eagles faced off against the Sunbirds of Fresno Pacific University. CUI took the victory in a hard fought battle 2-1.

CUI came out aggressive and looked to get on the board quickly.  In the opening two minutes of the match, forward Luke Ryan had a look at the goal but missed just high of the crossbar.  

FPU did not shy away from the moment, shortly after the Concordia shot attempt, Fritz Voltmer crossed the ball to Fellipe Souza who flicked the pass to teammate Brian Leyva for the Sunbirds first goal of the intense PacWest opening match, making the score 1-0 in favor of Fresno.

As the half continued, both teams battled back and forth for possession. The Eagles, battle tested throughout the pre-season, have been in this situation before. CUI managed to put pressure on the Sunbirds keeper taking six shots in the half with three of them being on target. 

In the final seconds of the first half, the Fresno Pacific keeper came up big and saved two shots from both Jose Huerta and Willy Ospina of the Concordia Irvine squad.

Another strong halftime talk from head coach Chris Gould gave a spark to the Eagles.

In the second half of play the Green and Gold came out with an extreme focus and effort which led to shot attempts from Caley Powers, Nick Aquino, and Erick Correa in the opening minutes of the half.

The pressure that the Eagles put on FPU paid off and led to a goal in the 56th minute of action. Powers took a shot that was deflected by the Sunbirds keeper right to the likes of Ryan, who fired it into the bottom left corner of the net for the CUI goal, knotting the game up 1-1.

From then on, the Irvine Green and Gold controlled the tempo and the outcome. Previous PacWest Player of the Week, Correa, setup teammate Powers for a volley right past the hands of the Fresno keeper to give the Eagles a 2-1 lead with under nine minutes remaining in the game.

The Sunbirds were unable to find the net in the final minutes of the match and the Eagles took the victory in the PacWest opener.

You can catch CUI in action on Thursday, October 10th at Academy of Art at 1:00 pm.

For the full schedule of the CUI men's soccer team, click here: