IRVINE, Calif. - On Monday's game for men's soccer, the Golden Eagles took on the visiting team, Dominican University of California.

The Golden Eagles were looking to ride the wave of momentum from last game's win over the Urban Knights and get back into PacWest contention. At the start of the game, there was high energy from both the bench players and coaching staff, encouraging their teammates that were on the field.

That high energy led into some great sequences of passing for the offense with no result. Players such as Tyler Oakson and Jahir Sandoval were extremely aggressive and had phenomenal shots towards the goal in the first half. Unfortunately, there were no goals that came from those shots, but it kept the pressure on the Penguins defense for the entirety of the first half.

The Penguins came out just as aggressive on offense in the first half and didn't have any result from their shots towards the goal either, thanks to the Golden Eagles stellar defense. That pressure persisted, and eventually, the Penguins struck the first blow by scoring in the 20th minute of the game, making it 1-0. That same score was brought into the half as the Golden Eagles did not allow another score from the Penguins.

Entering the second half of the match, the Golden Eagles looked to tie the score up with some aggressive play on offense. With lots of Golden Eagles on the attacking side of the field, there was eventually a cleared ball by the Penguins defense and found one of their players down field, to make it a 2-0 score in the 48th minute of the game. This is when the Penguins created some distance from the Golden Eagles, but the boys did not back down without a fight.

Entering the 72nd minute of the game, the Golden Eagles offense truly started to click together and play like a unit. Players Anthony Morales and Mikel Villareal pinball passed to each other until they located a slashing Alfanso Montano to find the back on the net and break the ice against the Penguins making it 4-1. The Golden Eagles were not satisfied with just one goal.

The next Golden Eagle to score in the contest four minutes later was Kevin Sanchez off of another sweet pass from Mikel Villareal. That made it a 4-2 contest in the 77th minute. To add to the scoring barrage, just a few dribbles later Jahir Sandoval found another slashing player, Ryan Smith, to make it a 4-3 game entering the 78th minute.

With Smith's goal, that resulted in a total of three Golden Eagle goals in five minutes of play!

Despite a great effort from the Golden Eagles and their offense, it was not enough to overcome being down 4-0. The Penguins escaped and sealed the deal with one more late goal to make it a 5-3 final.

For more men's soccer, you can watch them back in action for PacWest Conference play this upcoming Thursday, Oct. 19, at 5:00 p.m. away against Azusa Pacific University.

For the full CUI men's soccer schedule CLICK HERE