Oregon State Men's Soccer Report: Beavers Go 1-1 in Week One of 2024 Season
The Oregon State Men's Soccer team saw a mixed set of results in their first week of action. A 2-0 United Soccer Coaches rankings, from 4th to 19th.
UC Irvine was the Beavers' first match of the season, with the Anteaters coming to Corvallis last Thursday. The first half of the game was Beaver domination, with OSU outshooting UCI 10-0. Despite that, Oregon State could not get a goal past Anteater Keeper Luke Pruter, and the score stayed at 0-0 at the half.
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Oregon State finally found a goal roughly 10 minutes into the second half, with Ellis Spikner getting the Beavers' first goal of the season after Jacob Huth picked up a Fabian Straudi corner kick and got the goalie to bite on a fake. Huth fed the ball to Spikner who buried the ball in the bottom left corner of the goal.
Big time moment from a big time player!#GoBeavs pic.twitter.com/2YbNnEJ090
— Oregon State Men's Soccer (@BeaverMSoccer) August 23, 2024
Despite the goal, UCI came out much more aggressive in the second half. After ceding most possession to the Beavers in the first half, the Anteaters managed several good shots in the second, though the Beavers managed to keep all of them away from the goal. Oregon State shifted into a much more defensive game plan, but in the 84th minute Ellis Spikner capitalized on a UCI turnover and got a great shot on goal. Pruter got the block, but Pere Belmonte picked up the rebound and got the Beavers their second goal of the game.
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The game wasn't over yet, and a couple minutes later UCI's Agaton Pourshahidi got the Anteaters their first, and only, shot on goal of the evening and made the most of it, slipping the ball past Ghandi Cruz to get Irvine within 1. That would be as close as they'd get, as the Oregon State defense did not allow UCI to take another shot, holding on to the 2-1 win.
A few days later, on Monday August 26th, the Beavers traveled up to Seattle to visit their old Pac-12 rival Washington. This game was starkly different from the contest against the Anteaters; a defensive slugfest with 21 total fouls and little in the way of shooting, where the Huskies eventually prevailed 1-0.
There were only eight total shots in the game, six from the Huskies and two from the Beavers. Washington managed the only two shots on goal, with Oregon State forcing no saves from Washington goalkeeper Jadon Bowton.
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The Huskies got the one goal of the night in the 61st minute, when Joe Dale found the perfect angle on a corner kick from Chris Meyers, slipping the goal past OSU defenders and Gandhi Cruz. The Beavers responded in the next 20 minute with a more aggressive offense, putting up their only two shots of the night (one from Ellis Spikner and one from Fran Cortijo) but neither was good enough to get past a stout Washington defense, as the Beavers fell 1-0.
The Beavers still seem to be finding their offensive footing after the loss of Logan Fairington to Major League Soccer, as no one has stepped up to be the elite scorer Fairington was, and the offense hasn't adjusted to find a way to score without a threat at that level. It is a long season though, and there's plenty of time for Oregon State to find a way to get goals on the board.
The Beavers will be on the road this weekend to face a few more Big 10 opponents. Tonight they'll take on the Michigan Wolverines in Ann Arbor, and Monday morning they'll be taking on the Michigan State Trojans in East Lansing. We'll learn a lot about what type of team the Beavers are this weekend.
Having grown up in Pocatello, home of the Idaho State Bengals, John Severs is a lifelong fan of small schools that don't always deliver a lot of wins. Prior to writing for Sports Illustrated, John covered the Beavers for SB Nation's Oregon State blog Building the Dam, with a focus on baseball and women's basketball. When he's not watching college sports he spends most of his time reading, playing video games and annoying cats.