RIVERSIDE, Calif. – After suffering an overtime loss in Fresno Pacific a season ago, there was a little bit of extra fire for California Baptist University coming into Thursday's WWPA game. But down by two goals late in the first half, the Lancers needed a lift.
Christopher "Teddy" Forte put an exclamation point on the first half for CBU, and the tone of the game changed for CBU's good from there. Forte's goal with seven seconds left in the first half sparked a seven-goal run for the Lancers that led them to a 10-6 redemption victory at home over the Sunbirds, who defeated CBU in Fresno 14-13 in overtime in 2014.
"We had never lost to [FPU] in history until last year, so we couldn't have a repeat of that," Forte said. "We had to get it done, especially in our home pool."
CBU improved to 5-6, 1-1 in conference this season, thanks in large part to its ability to score on three of its four six-on-five opportunities. Fresno Pacific falls to 2-6, 1-1.
"That was probably the loss that hurt the most last year," Coach
Kevin Rosa said. "It was the first time they ever beat us, but we just have to worry about our conference this year. Now we're 1-1 in conference and that's big for us."
Down 4-2 to the visitors,
David Ring scored his first of three goals to pull CBU within one with 28 seconds left in the first half. Ring positioned himself in front of the cage from about five meters out, took a pass from
Luke Schuler, pumped once and buried a shot.
Forte was clearly hungry for more. On the ensuing possession, the versatile two-meter picked his man's pocket at half pool and then raced out on a breakaway. He raised up and read the goalie before skipping his shot into the top-left corner to tie things, 4-4, with seven seconds left in the first half.
"I was just thinking I had to steal the ball, no matter what I had to steal the ball," Forte said. "I matched up with him, read his pass and lunged in his lane and I was gone."
After seeing several shots bounce off the frame of the goal or just off the fingertips of FPU's goalie in the first 16 minutes, the Lancers seemingly could not miss in the third quarter. Meanwhile
Joseph Moorman, who had 13 saves in the game, could not be beat with four saves in the third.
Both those factors added up to CBU dominating the third quarter 3-0. The Lancers didn't stop there, scoring the first two goals of the fourth quarter to put the game away, up 9-4 with 6:16 to play.
"Our defense bailed out our offense in the first half and our offense was able to come through in the end," Rosa said. "We were just a little deeper and able to get subs in and keep pushing. Even though we weren't scoring in the first half, we kept putting them on their heels and they got tired. We just started putting our chances away in the second half."
Brent Teraoka, who had two goals, scored on a six-on-five about two minutes into the second half to give CBU its first lead, 5-4. Forty-three seconds later, Forte added to the lead and Ring scored on another power play with 1:52 to play in the quarter to make it a 7-4 cushion.
Nick Candau helped create Ring's scoring chance, by drawing the exclusion with two seconds left in the shot clock, allowing Ring to quickly capitalize after the defense had started its transition to offense.
Insurance kept coming, with Ring scoring his second-straight 17 seconds into the fourth quarter off a
Clint Walling pass.
Tucker Angelo cashed in a one-time chance created by a drive and beautiful cross-pool pass from
Tanner Shore, which made it 9-4 with 6:16 remaining.
Shore also assisted on the Lancers' first goal of the game, as he dished off to Schuler, who converted the man advantage to pull CBU within 2-1 with six seconds to go in the first quarter.
Ryan Penney tied things with a goal created on a nice pass back between him and
Thomas Henline at about the three-meter mark.
"There was a point there where we could have gotten rattled, but I thought we maintained our composure well," Rosa said. "We were just missing a little bit. In the first quarter, we were a little tentative and in the second quarter we were forcing stuff and getting opportunities but not finishing. I knew if we just kept pushing it would come."
BOX SCORE
