The Dixie State College men’s soccer teams won 2-1 against Point Loma Nazarene University on Saturday after an upsetting week of losses.
This is the first game the Red Storm have won since beating California State University Los Angeles in August.
DSC has regained strength after losing five and tying one of the six games on the road.
“We are playing good soccer,” head coach Danny Ortiz said. “Unfortunately we haven’t been able to find the back of the net, which is the frustrating part of it. I really feel the guys because they definitely put in enough effort to have better results.”
Ortiz said they are a good team, but the follow-through seems to be their biggest struggle.
“That is the way this game is sometimes,” Ortiz said. “You go through these spills and try to stay as positive as you can and focus and try to work your way out.”
The team played a total of four games on its eight-day trip to San Francisco. But out of those four games, the first game against Notre Dame De Namur University was the only game where they had 100 percent of their players. Some of them had not been able to play due to illness and injury.
One of the players who had been out since earlier in the year was senior forward Jordan Roylance, a business major from Smithfield.
“He came in dinged up from playing the summer leagues,” Ortiz said. “So it has just taken him some time to get him healed up and ready to go.”
But DSC lost Roylance again early in the second game due to a hamstring injury.
“It’s just one thing after the other,” Roylance said. “But I have to keep going and have motivation to get better.”
His first home game was against PLNU where he made one of the goals to help Dixie win. After having a bunch of games on the road, the Red Storm are back home for a while.
Ortiz said hopefully they can get things turned around.
And no doubt they will if they continue playing like they did against PLNU.
“This game means a starting point for our conference,” Roylance said. “This game leads us on to start winning. It kickstarted us.”
Ortiz said they just need the confidence in scoring. He said he thinks they are playing well, but they just have to be confident in going to the goal.
“The guys in this program have always been very close and very good friends,” Ortiz said. “The guys like to be around each other and they like to represent the community and Dixie State this year.”
The game on Monday against University of Hawaii at Hilo put pressure on Dixie.
UH-Hilo gave DSC a good game. With a lot of mid-field action, the teams seemed to be evenly matched.
No one had scored at the end of regulation, and the game went into over time under sudden victory rules.
In the second overtime, Roylance netted the game-winner, making the game a 1-0 win for Dixie State.
The Red Storm play the University of Hawaii at Hilo on Monday at 4:30 p.m. at Hansen Stadium.
