Air Force Academy
Saint Mary's
Falcons Edge by Saint Mary's, 1-0
9/15/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
U.S. Air Force Academy, Colo. -- The Falcons improve to 5-1 on the season following a 1-0 victory over St. Mary's (1-3-2), Friday evening at Cadet Soccer Stadium, USAFA. Luis Martinez registered his second goal of the season with the game-winning goal.
The Falcons and Gaels engaged in back-and-forth play for the majority of the game, both teams struggling to find an offensive rhythm. In the 25th minute the Falcons mustered an attack on the Gael's cage, led by Austin Dewing who redirected the ball inside the box to Martinez who plugged it into the far right side. Martinez now leads the Falcons with six points from two goals and two assists this season. Dewing was credited with his first assist of the season.
At the half, the Falcons held the narrow advantage in shots, 6-5. The Falcons are now 5-0 when scoring first and leading at the half.
A scoreless second half yielded the Falcons their fourth shutout of the season; third credited to senior goalkeeper John Wendt. Wendt now holds a 0.60 goals against average with a .800 save percentage on the season. He faced two shots on the night.
At the final horn Air Force outshot St. Mary's, 13-12, and put six shots on goal to the Gael's two. The Falcons have ended all games this season with the advantage in shots; a total of 90-51 in six games.
"Unfortunately I didn't really like the game we played; it was kind of an ugly match," said head coach Doug Hill. "However, the sign of a good team is being able to battle through and win ugly matches and we did that tonight."
The Falcons 12 shots marks the least amount of shots taken by Air Force this season.
"Big kudos to the backs for keeping us in the game and securing the shutout," Hill Continued. "We need to be better on connecting passes and keeping the possessions so that will be our focus going into Sunday's match where we have to perform much better than we did tonight."
The Falcons will host UC Davis, Sunday afternoon at Cadet Soccer Stadium. Kickoff is slated for 1:00 p.m. MT. Live stats and a live stream will be available for the match.
