Maritime Men's Soccer Rights Ship with 3-1 win
Maritime Rights Ship with 3-1 win
The California Maritime won its first non-conference game in over 7 years on Saturday as they defeated Arizona Christian 3-1.
Playing in front of a large home crowd, the host Keelhaulers took the game to the visiting Firestorm from the opening whistle.
The Keelhaulers left several good chances go begging as both Marshall Fice and Jeff Squire had shots hit the woodwork and Ahron Huff saw two efforts soar over the bar.
As the half wore on the visitors started to gain confidence and produced some decent chances of their own, but Sophomore Keeper Kyle Carpenter dealt with the Arizona efforts rather comfortably.
Despite the strong first half showing the hosts were left frustrated, as the half ended at a 0-0 tie.
The second half began in similar fashion, Maritime having more of the possession. The Keelhaulers pressed for the opener but again Arizona Christian continued to get behind the ball in numbers and frustrate the hosts.
Then with 18 minutes gone in the half, full back Nic Anderson found an unmarked Patrick Wehan a yard inside the top of the box. Wehan sent a looping header over the outstretched arms of the Firestorm Keeper and into the net off the underside of the bar. It was the Freshman Midfielder's first goal as a college player.
The opening goal seemed to inspire Maritime as they started to pile on the pressure searching for a second. Five minutes later Wehan would find the net again when a speculative strike from 20 yards out was enough to get by the Firestorm keeper and the Keelhaulers were up 2 with a quarter of an hour left to play.
Daniel Millward would score a third for Maritime when he pounced onto a long pass from Nic Anderson, controlled the ball well and fired home into the bottom left corner which put the game out of reach.
A lot of credit should be given to Arizona Christian who worked hard the entire game. The Firestorm was rewarded 4 minutes from time, when a penalty was awarded for a foul inside the Maritime area. Sidney Jones powered the Penalty pass Will Akers to avoid the shutout.
Maritime would see out the game and get back in the win column just in time for their next conference game Tuesday night when they take on the Pioneers of Pacific Union.
Game time is 6:00 at Dan Foley Park in Vallejo.