UOG Men's Soccer Team Defeats Islanders In Tense Match

The University of Guam Men's Soccer Team defeated the Islanders Football Club on Saturday night at the Guam Football Association's National Training Center in the GFA Budweiser Premier League 4-2 in a tense match.

Both teams entered the match with 4-0 records, in a four way tie for first place in the Premier League, but the Islanders were the top scoring team in the league with 30 goals in four games. They had not allowed a goal coming into this game.

But UOG came out fired up and went to a 3-0 lead in the first 25 minutes of the match. Dylan Naputi from the far right of the field sent a crossing pass to center of the field and Jacque Diambra Odi headed the ball into the goal for the game’s first goal at the 8 minute mark of the game. Then in the next 15 minutes, Naputi took advantage of two Islander defensive mistakes to set-up one on one situations with the Islander goalie and came out with two goals for his efforts.

And on the other end of the field, UOG goalkeeper Sean Evans was defending against the Islander attacks as the aggressive Islanders kept constant pressure on the Triton defense but the UOG defense held until the final second of the first half as the final Islander push scored and then the whistle blew to the end the half to make the score 3-1 at half-time.

The Tritons switched tactics for the 2nd half, pulling back most of the team to play defense for the final 45 minutes. The tactic worked for the first 25 minutes of the 2nd half, but the Islanders did score with 20 minutes left in the match to make it 3-2 for UOG.

The match became very tense with the Islanders 2nd goal, with 2-3 pushing and shoving incidents in the final 20 minutes of the match and 2-3 yellow cards being given.

The UOG offense started to show more life as well, with several counter attacks leading to shots on goal and finally with about 5 minutes left in the match, Joseph Quan broke through for the Tritons scored a goal to make it 4-2 Tritons and put the game away for UOG and that is how the game finished in a 4-2 win for the Tritons.

But the tension was still there as, the teams were not finished shouting at each other and the traditional handshakes at the end was delayed for about 5 minutes until tempers cool. But in the end, handshakes prevailed and UOG had a huge win on the night.

The Tritons are now 5-0 in the season, tying their start from the Fanuchånan (Fall) of 2016, and they have one more match left in the fall part of the Premier League schedule, as the Tritons face the Crushers FC on Sunday, December 3 at 7:30 p.m.