Nov. 12, 2009

Box Score

DENVER - Sixth-seeded UNLV scored three goals in the first 30 minutes of the game on the way to claiming a 4-2 victory over third-seed San Jose State in the first round of the 2009 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation men's soccer tournament on Thursday afternoon from the Denver Soccer Stadium.

The Rebels improved to 8-6-4 on the year with the victory, and clinched their first winning season since 2002. They advance to the Friday's semifinals, and will take on top-seeded Sacramento State at 4 pm. The Spartans saw their season end at 9-10-1.

UNLV's Stephen Sifuentes got the scoring going early, stealing a pass inside the box and sending it to the back of the net from seven yards out for a 1-0 lead in the seventh minute. The lead was pushed to 2-0 on a score from Nicholas DeLeon, as the sophomore midfielder received a pass from Taylor Bowling and blasted in a shot from 35 yards out that just went over the hands of SJSU goalkeeper Jonathan Lester in the 25th minute.

Nick Marshall extended the lead for the Rebels to three less then five minutes later, when he dribbled around a defender and slotted a shot to the bottom left of the goal for a 3-0 edge in the 30th minute. UNLV went up by a 4-0 score in the 70th minute thanks to a score from Roberto Farfan, who took a pass from Zach Kupfer and shot to the far left of the goal from the top of the box.

The Spartans did make a late rally, scoring twice in the final 15 minutes of the game to close within two. Nick Cukar notched the first goal, a header off a corner kick from Ricky Dorrego in the 76th minute to cut the edge to 4-1. Josh Boemecke then added another Spartan score, on a shot from the top of the box to the far left post to make the score 4-2 in the 85th minute.

UNLV held a 17-14 edge on shots, while the Spartans had 10 corner kicks in the game to just one for the Rebels. Roland Swanson made one save in goal for UNLV, as did Lester for SJSU.