Monday, November 14, 2022

PORTLAND, Ore. – After stunning the defending national champions on their home pitch and advancing to the third round of the NCAA Division II Men’s Soccer Championships, Northwest Nazarene men’s soccer is the GNAC Team of the Week.

The Nighthawks came into the week fresh off their first GNAC title in program history as the No. 8 seed in Super Region 4. Their first opponent in Los Angeles was No. 9 seed West Texas A&M on Thursday. After a first half where neither side could find the back of the net, it was Northwest Nazarene’s all-time leading goal scorer Jake Levine who punched through with a header off a free kick from Lukas Juodkunaitis to score the first goal of the match in the 81st minute.

The Buffs didn’t go quietly, however, equalizing two minutes later to force overtime. After 20 minutes where the goalkeepers stood tall and the defenses ruled the pitch, the match was officially declared a 1-1 draw and came down to penalty kicks to determine who would advance. The first five shooters for both sides put their shots home then NNU junior goalkeeper Sawyer Price came through with saves in the sixth and seventh rounds. It was freshman midfielder Zakaria Daaou who punched the Nighthawks’ ticket, driving home his attempt from the penalty spot in the seventh round.

Northwest Nazarene’s next opponent was the defending Division II champion and No. 1 seed Cal State LA on Saturday. The first half was another where the defense proved to be dominant as the Nighthawks stifled the potent Golden Eagle’s offense and went into halftime tied 0-0. The offense ramped up in the second half with NNU pressing early and paid off in the 55th minute when Juodkunaitis broke through on a corner kick opportunity to put the Nighthawks up 1-0.

Cal State LA pushed back with a goal of its own in the 75th minute but Northwest Nazarene and Juodkunaitis responded immediately to crush the momentum of the home side with a goal less than a minute later. The NNU defense locked out the Golden Eagles for the remainder of the match as Juodkunaitis’ brace lifted the Nighthawks to a 2-1 victory.

Head coach John Powell was very happy with his team after Saturday’s win and pointed to the energy the Nighthawks played with as well as their effectiveness on defense and set pieces as key components in the victory.

“It’s a special group,” Powell said. “We’ve said that all year. They’ve done some things that we still don’t really believe happened. We just take one game at a time and that’s kind of how we approached this. We knew LA is the reigning national champ. They’re a fantastic team, they’re well coached. We just paid attention to the details. We focused on our game plan and I think the boys executed from the first minute and I do think they were the better team over 90 minutes, so just really proud of them.”

Northwest Nazarene (14-3-3) will head to San Antonio, Texas on Thursday to face No. 4 seed Cal State Dominguez Hills (15-1-5) at Sigma Beta Chi Field on the campus of Saint Mary’s University in the west regional semifinals. The Nighthawks and Toros have not met on the pitch since September 2017. The winner of that match will go on to face the winner of No. 2 seed Saint Mary’s and No. 3 seed CSU Pueblo in the regional final on Saturday.