Another Record Broken by Apodaca

Thursday, October 19

Azusa, Calif.

7:30 PM

California Baptist University

Azusa Pacific

Photo by: Carey Schumacher

Another Record Broken by Apodaca

10/19/2017 9:28:00 PM | Men's Soccer

Box Score

By: Sammi Wellman, Director of Sports Information

AZUSA, Calif. — As the season winds down, No. 5 California Baptist University is looking to control its own destiny. The Lancers sit in the top spot of the first NCAA Division II West Regional rankings and are well in the hunt for the PacWest Championship.

Thursday night, CBU battled rival Azusa Pacific on the road and was kept quiet for the first half, but came alive in the second, grabbing a 3-0 victory.

CBU moves to 11-0-2 overall, 7-0-1 in the PacWest. APU drops to 3-9-1 on the year and 3-5-1 in conference.

"We knew APU would be up for us, everyone is gunning for us right now," said Coach Coe Michaelson. "It's a rival game, night game, we knew they'd be ready to play so we're definitely excited for the 3-0 win."

Aidan Apodaca scored two goals in the game to become the all-time leading scorer with 42 career goals. He already owns the single-game (5) and single-season (23) records, both of which he broke this year.

"It feels great," said Apodaca. "It's definitely an accomplishment I feel great about. I have a team behind me that has set me up for this opportunity and I'm happy to share this with them."

Just 10 minutes into the game, CBU had two good looks one right after another. Sebastian Wiesbock fired off a shot from distance, but it pinged off the crossbar. Less than 30 seconds later, Joey Chica ripped a shot from the top of the box, curving it toward the back post, but the Cougar goalkeeper Brendan Fix made a parry save to keep it scoreless.

APU had some chances just before halftime, but Abe Placito gave CBU an opportunity with less than three minutes to play. He sent a long ball into the Cougar defensive third, allowing Aidan Apodaca to run onto it and get a corner kick.

Unfortunately, the Lancers couldn't get anything out of it, sending the two teams deadlocked at 0-0 into halftime.

Coming out of the break, CBU came out pressing hard. Within the first five minutes of the half, the Lancers had two shots on goal – one from Wiesbock and another from Preston Judd – but Fix came up big once again.

Wiesbock finally broke through in the 57^th minute, chipping the goalkeeper at the top of the box off an assist from Chris Heckenberg.

Heckenberg looked like he might get on the other end just minutes later, but the Cougar goalkeeper made another save to keep his team in the game.

Apodaca had a breakaway with less than 15 minutes to go, but once again Fix made a big save. The Cougars couldn't keep Apodaca quiet for much longer, however, as the senior scored two goals within a minute of each other to put his team up 3-0. He scored on a breakaway off a Wiesbock assist and then converted a penalty kick with under 12 minutes to go, 3-0.

APU had its best chance of the night with less than a minute remaining, but the header went high of the goal to give the Lancers the 3-0 win.

"Came here two years ago and got a win so I was happy to repeat it this year," said Apodaca about the win.

CBU heads to Biola on Monday for another game under the lights, kicking off at 7:00 p.m. The Lancers return home on Oct. 26, hosting Holy Names at 3:00 p.m.

"It's going to be a difficult game," said Michaelson looking into the next game. "Biola is a good team. It's really difficult to play at their place, they're really good defensively. They tied UC San Diego – who is the current No. 2 team in the current regional poll – there earlier this year, so we know we have a very difficult game ahead. We're not going to overlook them at all. We're pretty beat up so we want to take the next three days to get healthy and go into Monday motivated to win in what we know will be a very difficult contest."