SAN DIEGO (Daily Aztec) - San Diego State men’s soccer escaped with a 2-1 win against University of Nevada, Las Vegas on Monday night at the SDSU Sports Deck.
SDSU (4-2-1) jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, and hung on for its fourth straight victory after a late goal and second half resurgence by UNLV (5-5).
Head coach Lev Kirshner said his team played well throughout the contest, and showed lots of energy.
“There’s many ways to win games,” Kirshner said. “We started out very bright (with) a lot of energy, a lot of good ball movement, executing a lot of the things we’ve been training.”
The Aztecs opened the scoring in the first minute after junior midfielder Pablo Pelaez scored his fourth goal of the season off of a penalty kick.
Four minutes later, freshman midfielder Laukoa Santos added to SDSU’s lead with a 25-yard goal off an assist by junior midfielder Keegan Kelly.
The goal was Santos first as an Aztec, and is something he said he’s worked towards.
“It felt amazing,” Santos said. “All the hard work and dedication into that one moment… I loved every second of it and hopefully there’s more to come.”
The two goals kept the Aztecs in control of the game for much of the first half, as they outshot UNLV 7-0 by the 22nd minute.
Junior defender Aleks Berkolds said the high intensity aided the Aztecs early dominance against the Rebels.
“I think we came out with the right intensity and we kind of overwhelmed them,” Berkolds said. “They couldn’t really start off and get anything on us.”
