The Bruins shut out the Kansas Christian College Falcons to win 4-0 in the second match of pool play and extends their chances to play for the national championship.
"Today, there was no tactical conversation," Head Coach Greg Fulton said. "It was simply a message of unity and how we can stick together when things aren't perfect. We would have loved to score more and take advantage of more of our chances, but we have to stay positive from here on out."
The Bruins dominated the offensive side and had many chances to score more than four. The Falcons goalkeeper made several key saves to keep the Falcons within reach including a penalty kick early on in the first half. In the game as a whole, the Bruins out-shot the Falcons 32-2! It was in the 18th minute when the Bruins scored first by a header from Asher Aurednik and assisted by Jake Provenzano. Even with threats throughout the rest of the half, it wasn't until the final seconds of the half that the Bruins scored again. It was Asher Aurednik with another header in the 45th minute, this time assisted by Sam Gaddis.
"The halftime talk was instrumental in seeing a much better second half with more control of our play," Coach Fulton said.
The second half was completely controlled by the Bruins, but they could only put two goals away. They out-shot the Falcons 19-0 in the second half. Anthony Ruiz scored in the 57th minute to extend the lead to 3-0. Even with this lead, the Bruins were hungry for more due to how important goal differential could prove to be in pool play. Eli Solomon scored the Bruins fourth goal in the 88th minute and that lead held the rest of the match.
With this win, the Bruins now have six points in the pool and lead with one match to go. According to the standings, they must win or draw on Thursday against Grace Christian College to move on to the national championship match. The national championship will be played on Saturday at 3:00 p.m.
"I think Grace Christian is the most similar to us and our style of play," said Coach Fulton. "We want to be playing the best teams in the nation in order to win it all, otherwise, we don't feel like we fully earned it, so we are very excited for the challenge in front of us."
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