The Dominican University men's soccer team and Aurora University Spartans played to a 2-2 draw on Wednesday evening. The teams will share the 2019 Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) regular season title with the Stars taking the top-seed for the 2019 NACC Tournament thanks to a 31-24 goal differential.
"Tale of two halves tonight," commented
Erick Baumann, the Stars' head men's soccer coach, when asked about Wednesday's draw. "Good first half and poor second half. We simply can't give up a two-goal lead with 38 minutes to play. With that said, it is good to get the number one seed in the conference tournament and we are fortunate to add another regular season conference championship. They don't come easy and you can't ever take them for granted."
The Stars opened the scoring in the 29
th minute when
Jonathan Hernandez's header snuck through the legs of Jalen Depenbrock, the Spartans' goalkeeper. The score was the 13
th of the season for the sophomore.
Dominican managed to extend the lead in the 53
rd minute when
Garrett Boston served a ball into the Spartans' box. With
Isaac Perez making a run for the front post, a Spartan defender knocked the ball into the goal for an own goal.
Twelve minutes later, in the 65
th minute, Connor Erickson got the Spartans on the board, scoring on a header at the back post off of Salvador Garcia's corner kick service. Less than ninety seconds later, the Spartans leveled the score after a ball over the Stars' backline sucked
Daniel Dominguez off his line. Dominguez appeared to make the initial save but was called for a foul as he made contact with the Spartans' attacker. The ensuing penalty kick was just out of reach of a diving Dominguez, evening the game at 2-2.
The Spartans continued to press forward throughout the second half and overtimes, looking for the go-ahead tally, but Dominguez answered the call time and again, making 13 stops on the nine, 11 coming in the second half and two overtime periods.
The Stars will sit idle during this weekend's NACC Tournament quarterfinal round and will return to action next Tuesday, hosting the lowest remaining seed in the semifinals. Kickoff in Dominican's semifinal is slated for 1:00 p.m. with the winner advancing to the 2019 NACC Tournament Championship.