Tulsa’s Miguel Velasquez scored the game-winning goal in the 95^th minute to give the Golden Hurricane a 3-2 overtime win over 16^th-ranked FIU on Thursday night in the NCAA Championship First Round at the Hurricane Soccer and Track Stadium.  TU moved to 8-6-6 on the season, while FIU ended their season with a 12-7-1 mark.

 

Tulsa will return to action in the Second Round of the NCAA Championship against seventh-seeded Notre Dame.  The game is set for 1:00 pm Central on Sunday, November 22 at Alumni Stadium in Notre Dame, Ind.

 

“It was a hard fought game,” Head Coach Tom McIntosh said.  “Going a goal down we didn’t want to do that, but I thought we possessed the ball pretty well in the first half.  We just played too much in front of them, so we tried to step up our pressure in the second half.  I thought we opened the game up a little bit, and we got two really good goals to go up 2-1. We were a bit unfortunate on their second goal, but Jake made a couple big saves prior to that one, unfortunately that happens.”

 

“The winning goal by Miguel was a top-class strike.  He and Juan scored two amazing goals. We’re happy to be moving on.”

 

Luis Betancur put the Panthers on the board at the 16:03 mark as he headed in a cross taken by Paul Marie.  Neither team scored in the remainder of the half to give FIU a 1-0 lead at the break.

 

Tulsa came out of intermission and scored back-to-back goals in the first 11 minutes of the second half.  Juan Sanchez took an assist from Quinton Duncan to even the score at 1-1 at the 52^nd minute.  The Hurricane took a 2-1 lead within four minutes when Geoffrey Dee scored on a put-back from eight yards out off of his own penalty kick attempt in the 56^th minute.

 

FIU knotted the score at 2-2 when Brad Fountain took a pass from DeShawon Nembhard and scored with a 20-yard rocket into the top right corner of the goal at the 81:58 mark.

 

Velasquez game-winner was drilled in from 12 yards out on the right side off a pass from Zack Stavrou.

 

Tulsa had a 20-11 lead in shots, while both teams had seven shots on goal, and FIU had a 3-2 advantage in corner kicks.

 

Dee had a team-high seven shots, followed by Sanchez with three attempts, and Lesley Nchanji, Munahse Raranje and Bradley Bourgeois each with two shots.  Jake McGuire logged all 90 minutes in goal and picked up five saves.

 

Scoring Summary

Tulsa   0          2          1          -           3

FIU      1          1          0          -           2

 

Individual Scoring

Luis Betancur (FIU) at 16:03 (Paul Marie)

Juan Sanchez (Tulsa)           at 51:57 (Quinton Duncan)

Geoffrey Dee (Tulsa) at 55:48 (unassisted)

Brad Fountain (FIU) at 81:58 (Deshawon Nembhard)

Miguel Velasquez (Tulsa) at 94:18 (Zack Stavrou)

 

Goalkeeper Saves

Jake McGuire (Tulsa) – 5

Arthur Clapot (FIU) – 4

 

-TulsaHurricane.com-