Box Score

Fresno Pacific opened up its final season of GSAC play with a 6-0 home victory over San Diego Christian on Saturday. Paul Islas led the attack with two goals and two assists. Fabricio Nazare also had two assists on the day as the Sunbirds improved to 4-3 on the season.

After 35 minutes of scoreless play, Gustavo Silva drilled a hard shot from the left side at close-range that bounced right off a Hawks player into the goal. From that point, the gloves came off as the Sunbirds began to play to their capabilities.

Two minutes after the first goal Adrian Arias was fouled in the box, leading to a penalty kick buried by Rodrigo Vianna. Just before halftime, the Sunbirds caught the Hawk defense off guard, creating a 3-on-2 situation as SDCC players were slow getting back on defense. Guilherme Machado, seeing his first action after missing the first six games of the season, broke away in the midfield and a succession of quick passes from him to Julian Mattaliano to Islas beat the defense for a 3-0 lead with Islas getting the goal.

FPU goalie Steven Waite played very well in the first half, making a couple huge saves that could have potentially made it a much different game. He finished with the shutout and five saves.

Islas had a hand in all three of the second-half goals as well, finding Bruno Pessoa for the score in the 74th minute and tacking on another one of his own two minutes later from Nazare. In the 82nd minute the Sunbirds made some mass substitutions and it resulted in the first goal of the season for Kenneth Sale, who scored from near the top of the box after being set up by Islas.

It was a physical game that included eight yellow cards, but the Sunbirds refused to back down. FPU out-shot the Hawks 26-9, including 15-3 in the second half.

Jordan Abad led the Hawks (2-3-1, 0-1 GSAC) with three shots, while Victor Flores created the majority of the team's scoring chances. Alex Cozzi made nine saves in goal.

The Sunbirds move on to play UC Santa Cruz at home next Saturday at 6 pm in a non-conference match, before taking on conference rival #6 Azusa Pacific the following week. APU defeated UC Santa Cruz 1-0 at Azusa tonight.