A penalty kick goal turned out to be the difference in the game as The Master’s University men’s soccer team lost its conference opener to the Soka Lions 3-2 Saturday, Sept. 20 at Reese Field.

Despite out-shooting the Lions 18-10, the Mustangs (1-3-1, 0-1) could not get a tying goal before the clock went to 0:00.

Head Coach Jim Rickard said after the game giving up 14 goals in five games puts too much pressure on an offense to get four to five goals a game.

“At the end of the day, when you make mistakes and the other team punishes you for it, that’s the mark of a solid team,” Coach Rickard said. “And they punished us for our mistakes. That was the difference in the game.”

With 9:45 to play in the game, an errant TMU pass was intercepted by Soka’s Rudy Garcia. He went one-on-one with Mustangs goalkeeper Julian Graham, with the latter getting called for a foul inside the penalty box. The resulting PK from Armando Carrera turned out to be the game winner.

But before that it was a matter of answers by The Master’s offense that gave hope to the near capacity crowd for a home-team win. After Soka’s Justin Wu scored 17:24 into the game, Trent Rickard netted his conference-leading ninth goal of the season, off an assist from Peyton Gorans, in the 27th minute to tie it at 1-1.

Rickard has scored in every game played by the Mustangs so far this season.

A little more than 10 minutes into the second half, Garcia lifted the Lions to a 2-1 lead. But that was answered by Kai Terentieff in the 74th minute when he headed in a shot off a pass from Braden Krusey to knot the score once again.

Less than seven minutes later was when the penalty kick turned into a game-winner for Soka.

Rickard finished with 10 shots, four of which were on goal.

The Master’s will have two road games this week starting with a trip to Riverside Thursday, Sept. 25 to take on the La Sierra Golden Eagles at 7:30 p.m. That will be followed by a Saturday, Sept. 27 game at Irvine Great Park against the Hope International Royals, the defending GSAC champions, at 12 p.m.

For more information visit GoMustangs.com.