Marcus Reynolds scored twice in the first five minutes and Chris Sack made five saves in his first match since 2002 as the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs defeated the Westminster Griffins 4-2 Saturday afternoon at Sand Creek Stadium.
Sack, who had a 4-4 record as a backup goalkeeper for the Mountain Lions in 2002, is still a student at UCCS. When starting goalkeeper
Chris Hovasse and reserve
Justin Elliott were both injured during the same week, head coach Flavio Mazzetti asked Sack to join the squad.
Sack responded with steady play that didnâ€TMt show the expected rust.
Reynolds opened the scoring just 1:22 into the game when he drove home a 15 yarder after an outstanding pass by
Matt Eshbach.
"The credit (for the goal) goes to
Matt Eshbach," said Reynolds. "He zigzagged through the middle to get past two defenders. I just passed it on into the goal -- easy."
Reynolds' second goal came exactly 3 minutes later.
Eric Foulk put a perfect corner kick to the feet of
Juan Nolasco, who one timed it in front of the net. Reynolds outpositioned a pair of Westminster defenders to head the ball past goalkeeper James Taylor (4-4-2).
A little over four minutes later, UCCS made it 3-0 when Nolasco tracked down a long pass from Eshbach and drilled it in.
It was the best 9 minutes of soccer played by a UCCS team since the days of Kevin Noleen and Matt Bolton.
"We dominated," said Reynolds. "We told ourselves we needed to come out strong because usually we come out a little sluggish in the first half."
Westminster (4-4-2) struck back in the 14th minute. UCCS was slow in transition, leaving a 2-on-2 situation in its defensive end. Dave Rogers drew the lone defender,
Brian Best, and slipped an accurate pass to Taylor Lever, who was alone with Sack. Sack dove for the ball but was unable to make the save.
The Mountain Lions made it 4-1 in the 56th minute when
Matt Atkins collected a deflection off the Griffins defense and found an opening in the lower right portion of the goal.
Mazzetti substituted liberally, particularly in the second half.
"The game could have been prettier," said Mazzetti, "but I thought it was important to see some of these guys play, especially on defense."
While the results were, for the most part, very satisfactory, there was one embarrassing gaffe. UCCS reserve defender
Corey Johnson did a good job riding Dave Rogers off the ball in the UCCS penalty area, but instead of booting the ball out-of-bounds, he attempted to play the ball back to Sack. Unprepared, Sack was unable to keep the ball from going into the net. The own goal made the final 4-2.
For UCCS (5-4-1), the win avenged a 2-1 loss to the Griffins in Salt Lake City on Sept. 2.
