SAN RAFAEL, Calif.--Westmont scored three times in the first 30 minutes to roll to a 4-2 PacWest semifinal men's soccer victory over
Vanguard on Saturday afternoon at Kennelly Field. The Warriors will advance to the PacWest title match on Saturday (noon) against Hawaii Pacific, who defeated host Dominican earlier today, 2-0.
The Warriors, the No. 3 seed, had goals from four different players to top No. 2 seed Vanguard. The Warriors move onto Saturday's match with a 10-7-5 record, while Vanguard's season comes to a close at 7-9-2.
Westmont, who won the PacWest tournament title in 2024 and earned the conference's automatic berth into the NCAA tournament, are on that quest again. They got into the 2026 PacWest event by virture of a 4-1 win over Point Loma on the final day of the regular season.
Today, they came out on fire. The Warriors scored just 10 minutes into the match on
Logan Race's shot into the upper right corner of the net, off a pass from
Tiago Aranibar. Aranibar's pass off the corner kick was placed nicely for Race, who headed the ball into the net for a 1-0 lead.
Westmont added points at 24:30 on
Luis Cortez's shot (low left), off the dish from
Leonel Olivio Ortiz. The Warriors added another tally five minutes later (30th minute) on
Julius Oehmihen's score, with two passes leading to the shot from
Donovan Espino and Aranibar.
Vanguard then got on the board via an own goal in the 41st minute to make it 3-1 at halftime. But the Warriors had a tremendous first half advantage on the stat sheet, with 11 shots to 1 and 7-2 on goal.
12 minutes after the break, Westmont made it 4-1 on
Cole Lomeli's score, with Cortez on the assist. Vanguard added one more goal in the 75th minute via
Anthony Hernandez-Perez but that would be the end of the scoring.
The final stat tally showed Westmont with a 16-6 shot advantage, 9-5 in shots on goal and 7-3 in corner kicks.
Looking ahead to Saturday's championship match, Westmont had the victory when they faced the Sharks earlier this year in Hawaii, 2-0.
quotes to come...