At the Paso Robles Horse Park, the Cal Poly men’s soccer team defeated Fresno Pacific 4-0 Wednesday evening in their final tune-up before kicking off the season next Friday in Indiana. 

Three Stars

Christian Enriquez is a sophomore, but he’ll be Cal Poly soccer’s field general from the midfield this season. By Owen Main

Sophomore midfielder Christian Enriquez started the scoring within the first few minutes. He collected a bouncing ball just outside the box and calmly slotted it past the Sunbird keeper, who was caught in no man’s land about five yards away.

Enriquez helped Cal Poly double their lead a few minutes later, playing a no-look through ball to junior college transfer forward Sean Goode. Goode did what he’s done every time I’ve seen him — that is score on his chances. 

Senior Kaba Alkebulan subbed into the game late in the first half and made an immediate impact with his speed. Kaba took a ball over the top down the left side, turned in and right footed it into the goal. Just after halftime, Alkebulan doubled up, scoring a pretty similar goal. 

Enriquez and Kaba are a clear one and two. Eddie Melgoza was my number three. Melgoza started in central midfield and led the back line to a clean sheet. Other defenders did rotate in and out, but Melgoza seems to be settling into a central defender role after playing on the left side most of his freshman year. 

Hoosier-bound

Cal Poly starts their season against two top-10 teams at a tournament in South Bend, Indiana at Notre Dame. First, they’ll face #7 Indiana on Friday August 25th, followed by a match the following Sunday vs. the hosts — #10 Notre Dame. Their opening road trip also features games at the Big East’s Georgetown and #6 Maryland. 

Decent results in those four road games should give the Mustangs the benefit of the doubt for an NCAA bid if they’re on the bubble. Playing good teams early is also a great way to prepare for Big West play.

Mustangs tabbed third in the Big West North

Cal Poly was tabbed today to finish third in the Big West North in the conference’s preseason poll released today. Since there are only four teams in the conference’s North Division, being picked third isn’t great. 

If you look at last season’s performance, thinking of Cal Poly as a third place team in the division might be reasonable. The Mustangs have nearly 20 new players on their roster as they try to bounce back from (5-9-3) overall record (3-5-2 in Big West play).

Predictably, UCSB was pegged as the favorite in the North. UC Davis was picked second, followed by Cal Poly and Sacramento State. Cal State Northridge was picked first in the South followed by Cal State Fullerton, UC Riverside, and UC Irvine. 

Photos by Owen Main. To view the entire gallery, click here.

Chase Minter drilled home a penalty kick for the first goal on Saturday night. By Owen Main

Exhibition soccer matches can have widely varied levels of intensity. On Saturday night at Alex G. Spanos Stadium, Fresno Pacific and Cal Poly had no such issues. An intense exhibition led to a first-half red card against Fresno Pacific, a Cal Poly penalty kick, and numerous other fouls and cards.

Fresno Pacific used physicality to out-play the Mustangs for a good portion of the first half. They had the majority of possession in the first 20-30 minutes. Against the very early run of play, Cal Poly broke through with a Chase Minter penalty-kick goal in the 10th minute.

Cal Poly finally broke the game open in the second half. Up a man from the 33rd minute on, Joseph Bolous took a mini-cross from a controlled Kip Colvey and calmly slotted it past the Fresno Pacific keeper in the 74th minute.

Colvey assisted on the Mustangs’ third goal just seven minutes later. This time, it was Matt LaGrassa who put the ball in the old onion bag.

Forward Ron Reznichky scored the final goal of the game in the 90th minute. Steve Sampson explains below why it was kind of a big deal.

For Cal Poly’s soccer team at large this season, the jury is still out. Even with a great start to the season, I think the jury will continue to be out. The past two seasons, Cal Poly has had a solid start to the year, only to fall out of contention toward the end. If that was a result of predictability in style, I think the Mustangs won’t have that issue moving forward.

An attractive style of soccer still seems important, but it’s not the MOST important thing to the Sampson-led team. Cal Poly played most of the match with 3-4 attackers who seemed to interchange and a back-four that was well-supported by central midfielders.

Maybe the ability to play effectively in multiple ways will be a difference-maker for this team this season.

Photos by Owen Main

To view gallery, click here