No Love Lost: Rivals Return to the Pitch, Goals Stay Away

By Brandon Petersen

For the past four years, the Westcliff Warriors have represented a thorn in the side of the UC Merced men's soccer team.

The Bobcats have long been the cream of the crop in the Cal Pac.

Since UC Merced joined the conference, the No. 23 ranked Bobcats have won either the regular season or tournament championships six times.

Since the No. 19 Warriors have come on board, however, that number is just one – one less than Westcliff now claims.

And now that the 'Cats are running for the hills conference-wise, Thursday's matchup at the Great Park between the bitter rivals marked their last regular season league meeting.

And in typical Warriors/Bobcats fashion, the game played evenly throughout to scoreless tie and featured near-fisticuffs after the final whistle sounded.  

No love lost, indeed.

"I thought it was a really, really good game between two Top 25 teams," Westcliff head coach Randy Dodge said. "They're so good, and so well-organized. They have great players, and great coaching.

"I thought we played really well. We started a lot of young guys today, and they performed really well. We were very unlucky to not be up 1 or 2-0. We gave up onc chance in the first half. But, with all that being said, Merced at the end of the game got four big-time chances that they should have scored.

"So, you know, with us walking away with a tie in the last couple of minutes – absolutely it's a great result for us. It was a great game, a great showcase game, and I thought (UC Merced was) good."

The Warriors are smack-dab in the middle of the campaign and are battling fatigue at this point, especially coming off a NorCal road trip. Not to mention they are still missing team captain Finn Pock, who has been unavailable since Week 2.

Nevertheless, the Warriors brought their hard-hats to the pitch Thursday, and did what they do – play spectacular defense.

Keeper Jesse Heredia was easily the player of the game, coming up with not one, but two heart-stopping saves in moments the Bobcats wish they had back.

But Heredia came through as he has all season, and the Warriors back-line was up to the challenge once again, thwarting Merced's attack time and again.

Janis Hinterleitner, who had never previously been booked in his Warrior career, caught a yellow card, and looked at times more like a linebacker than a halfback, as he physically took down Bobcats left and right.

Toby Squire and Sohaib Owais were magnificent once again, and it cannot be understated just how big of a game Jonas Jansen turned in.

"I thought he was awesome," Dodge said of Jansen, "Unfortunately, Jesse at the end – he stole the show. I mean, JJ was consistent for 90 minutes, and then Jesse had to show up and do his job, and he did a fantastic job, so that was huge for us."

Heredia finished with five saves total, as did Merced keeper Angel Joaquin.

Merced got off nine shots to Westcliff's seven and had one more corner attempt (4).

Both sides collected a pair of yellow cards.

Up next for the Dubs is a showdown with Providence Christian at OCC Saturday.