BAKERSFIELD, Calif.—Tom Mohoric redirected a Julian Godinez direct kick in the 41st minute and that proved to be enough for Saint Mary’s (9-6-5) as the Gaels defeated No. 25 CSU Bakersfield 1-0 in the first round of the NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer Tournament Thursday night. A school record crowd of 2,207 (the old mark was 810 set earlier this season against Cal State Northridge) attended the match, the first Division I appearance by the Roadrunners.

Gaels’ goalkeeper Doug Herrick made three saves in earning the shutout. The Roadrunners outshot Saint Mary’s 13-8 and held a 9-3 advantage in corner kicks. The Gaels advance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament where they will travel to the ninth seed, UC Irvine on Sunday in a 6 p.m. match.

Adam Cooper, head coach, Saint Mary’s College

On getting the win on the road

“We’re obviously very happy with the win, this is a great crowd and a great environment. Pretty hostile environment on the road. For us to come down here and get our first ever tournament victory is great, it’s fantastic for us and good for our program and we’re ready for the next challenge.”

On different between the first match with CSUB on September 18, 2011

“We know them and they know us from that game earlier this year, obviously a little more riding on the line right now. But we certainly know what their strengths are And what their weaknesses were and we certainly did a good job dealing with both.”

Tom Mohoric, D, Sr. –Saint Mary’s College (scored game’s lone goal)

“It was a good felling, noting like it. I was able to lose my runner and it was a great ball and I just got the faintest of flicks on it and put it on frame and the rest is history.”

Doug Herick, GK, Sr.-Saint Mary’s College

“It helps having a great line in front of me, they did a great job of blocking shots and then when I was called on I did what I needed to do to keep a clean sheet.”

Simon Tobin, head coach CSU Bakersfield

“We were certainly happy to get an NCAA bid but we felt we were a team that could do some damage in the tournament. Credit to Saint Mary’s they came and I thought that they played really sharp and they didn’t let us get going in our game”

“We never really took charge of the game tonight I didn’t think and that’s a lot of credit to them.”

“Its one that got away, I still fell we’re a team that can play with Saint Mary’s, can play with anyone, you can see from the stat pages on year they don’t score a lot of goals but they play a mean defense and once they get a goal ahead they’re probably the one team that make it so hard to get it back.”

Gyasi Zardes-F. R-So-CSU Bakersfield

“We gave it our all, we gave it 100 percent and left everything on the field. They were just lucky to get one goal in and we’re definitely going to build off this because we never want to feel this feeling of losing ever again. “

~www.GoRunners.com~

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