SPOKANE, Wash. – Friday the 13^th always carries with it tales of horror.

            Sunday the 13^th wasn’t exactly kind to Gonzaga University’s men’s soccer team.

            Clark Phillips scored two goals for his team-leading fourth and fifth of the season, but the Bulldogs had to settle for its third tie of the West Coast Conference men’s soccer campaign after a 3-3 double-overtime deadlock with the University of San Diego..

            The Bulldogs (6-2-3, 1-0-3) survived two penalty kick goals by the Toreros, came back from a one-goal deficit twice to knot the score and eventually take the lead, surrendered more than one goal in a match for the first time this season, lost one player to injury and another to a red card and still had several chances to win.

            “We didn’t finish it,” Gonzaga head coach Einar Thorarinsson said. “The red card was kind of a stab in the heart a little bit.”

            But despite the disappointment of not winning a match Thorarinsson felt slipped away, he said the staff and players have to look at the bright side.

            “We have to take positives out of it. We scored three good goals; we came back twice and went ahead but just couldn’t hold the lead. We had our chances and could have finished the game on the chances we had. They showed a lot of character coming back.”

            The two USD penalty kicks were obviously a factor.

            USD’s (3-5-3; 0-2-2) Connor Brandt scored the first of his two penalty-kick goals at 30:31 after the Zags were called for a foul in the box. Gonzaga keeper Ryan Caballero got a hand on the low hard shot to his left only to see the ball trickle across the goal line.

            “I thought he had that one. He got a good hand on it,” Gonzaga goalkeeper coach Vito Higgins said.

            The second PK came at 86:29 and the Bulldogs clinging to the 3-2 lead. The Zags were called for a handball in the box and Brandt connected again past the diving Caballero, this time going to Caballero’s right.

            Trailing 1-0, Spokane senior Nick Hamer scored his first goal of the season for the Bulldogs to deadlock the match at 50:11. Hamer took a perfectly-placed cross from Aaron Jeffery from the deep right corner. Hamer directed the ball to the wide open far post.

            The Toreros took the lead again at 66:21 when Sergio Lopez scored his second goal of the season as he headed in Brandt’s corner kick to the far post.

            The Bulldogs once again battled back with two goals in eight minutes to take the lead.

            The first came at 74:02 when Conner Bevans dribbled in, the defender fell down and Phillips took the loose ball and rifled a shot from the left side for the equalizer and his fourth goal of the season. It was Phillips again at 82:01 as Jakob Granlund sent a cross from deep down the right wing and Phillips headed the ball to the near side past USD keeper Michael D’Arrigo for a 3-2 Gonzaga lead that set the stage for the second USD penalty kick.

            “We can only blame ourselves for the PKs, but I don’t know if either one was truly a PK. I’ll have to see the film, but that’s the way the ball bounces,” Thorarinsson said.

            The injured Bulldog was senior midfielder Nikolai Littleton, who suffered a knee injury in the 37^th minute that would sideline him for the remainder of the afternoon if not for the remainder of the season.

            “It’s his knee, but it’s too early to tell how serious. They’ll run an MRI on him,” Thorarinsson said.

            The Bulldogs were already without midfielder Lars Ludwigs who suffered an injury in Friday’s 2-1 win over Loyola Marymount University and was forced to sit out Sunday’s match. The injury to Littleton forced Thorarinsson to go deeper into his bench in the midfield than he’s gone all year.

            “Without Lars in that spot, Nikolai was the second guy. We really haven’t had anybody else in that spot all year so we had to make up for it a little bit,” Thorarinsson said.

            Jeffery, a transfer from Peninsula College in Port Townsend, Wash., was summoned for his first action of the season and quickly made his mark with the cross to set up Hamer for the early second-half goal. But a pair of yellow cards sent him to the bench and left the Bulldogs a man short at 96:19, the second yellow card carrying with it a red card and ejection. He will have to serve a one-match suspension as a result of the red card.

            Phillips, who became the first multiple-goal scorer for the Bulldogs in a match since he scored twice in a 3-2 double-overtime home victory over San Diego Oct. 9, 2011, almost had a couple more tallies Sunday. He did indeed find the net in the 35^th minute, but the goal was disallowed, much to the objection of the Gonzaga coaching staff, on a foul call against the Zags.

            Earlier in the match, Phillips, who has scored five goals in each of the last two seasons and is now tied for 10^th on the all-time Gonzaga list with 14, almost had another. Littleton had a free kick at the top of the 18 and his high, hard shot was knocked down by D’Arrigo. Phillips’ header following the initial save went just high over the crossbar in the 14^th minute.

            But he wasn’t done. About a minute prior to scoring the goal to tie the match 2-2 he guided a weak header toward a wide open right side of the goal, only to have a USD defender knock the ball away to prevent the score.

            Gonzaga also had a couple of chances to get an insurance goal late in the match and leading 3-2. Conner Bevans drilled a low, hard shot to the near post that D’Arrigo dove to the near post to save in the 85^th minute, and less than a minute later Alec Cutter was free on a perfect thru ball but he wasn’t able to get much behind the shot and D’Arrigo had an easy catch save on the low shot.

            The Bulldogs had a rash of scoring opportunities in the first 10-minute overtime.

            Ben Striar unleashed a high, hard shot from 30 yards straightaway in the 93^rd minute that D’Arrigo tipped over the crossbar at the last instant to prevent the Gonzaga victory. Josh Phillips had a wide-open shot from the left wing in the 94^th minute that D’Arrigo was able to fight off and grab the loose ball before the Bulldogs had any chance at a rebound. Clark Phillips had a header from the far post that skittered past the left post, but no Bulldog was in the area to re-direct the initial shot into the goal.

            The last good chance the Bulldogs had came in the 108^th minute. Nick Hamer served a corner kick that Greg Carter headed high from inside the 6-yard box.

            Caballero, who had just three saves as he was rarely tested except for the two penalty kicks, made perhaps his best save of the afternoon in the 100^th minute when Sergio Lopez took a high, hard, chest-high shot from 20 yards that Caballero knocked down.

            The Bulldogs held a 22-18 shots advantage, a figure somewhat skewed by the fact the Toreros had five shots in the second overtime, four of which went high and the fifth blocked as Caballero was not seriously challenge in the second OT session.

            D’Arrigo, meanwhile, was plenty busy for USD with 10 saves, seven in the second half.

            The combined six goals by the two teams was the most at Gonzaga Soccer Field since Gonzaga took back-to-back 3-2 overtime wins over LMU and USD in 2011. The last time two teams combined for six or more goals in a NCAA Division I home match for the Bulldogs was a 4-2 win over San Diego in 1999. Gonzaga defeated Trinity Western University of Langley, British Columbia, 5-1 at home to launch the 2009 season. TWU is a member of the Canadian Interuniversity Sport.

            Caballero was second in the latest NCAA statistics in goals-against-average (0.411) and save percentage (.911) heading into Sunday’s match, Caballero allowing five goals through the first 10 matches and making 44 saves while facing 50 shots. His GAA is now 0.67 and his save percentage is .855, numbers which would have ranked in the top 30 based on the latest statistics.

            The Bulldogs remain home Wednesday to face the University of Portland at 3 p.m. in a West Coast Conference match. Gonzaga’s lone action next weekend is Friday at Santa Clara University.