In its past two games, the California State East Bay men’s soccer team was unable to score any goals against California State San Marcos or UC San Diego.

On Friday night, the team faced California State San Marcos (5-4-4 overall, 4-2-4 conference), which ended in a physical yet scoreless game. By the end of the game, each team had 15 fouls to their name. East Bay received four yellow cards and one of San Marcos’s players was ejected with a red card.

San Marcos had the upper hand on the Pioneers in terms of shots, leading 15-9. Neither team was able to put the ball in the back of the net. This was the first game of the season for the Pioneers that resulted in a 0-0 score. Both teams had a difficult time capitalizing on the opportunities given to them, but were solid defensively. East Bay goalkeeper freshman Carlos Moreno led the Pioneers with three saves for the night.

On Sunday before they faced UC San Diego, the number one team in CCAA, the Pioneers honored the eight seniors who would be playing their final home game: Douglas McNiell, Juan Alfaro, Victor Calderon, Chris Arce, Steffen Sauer Preston Hale, Kalvin Conley, Ariel Rosenmann and Zach Leon.

“It was a bittersweet feeling because it would be my last official game here,” said senior forward Victor Calderon. “I will miss the feeling of stepping out on that field.”

San Diego came out very strong. They outshot the Pioneers 16-1 and were in the Pioneers defensive end for the majority of the game. “San Diego is a really organized team and showed more discipline defensively,” said senior defender Sauer. “It made it hard for us to create chances.”

But what got East Bay was their fouls. The Tritons put up three goals against East Bay, which all came from free kicks.

In the third minute of the game, Pioneer sophomore defender Brett Fuchs fouled a San Diego defender which led to a free kick. San Diego capitalized off the opportunity when Junior forward Malek Bashti received a pass off of the free kick and shot into the left side of the goal and scored.

The Pioneers then fouled again 30 minutes later, which resulted in another free kick and a direct goal into the left side of the goal by senior midfielder Nick Palano. East Bay went into the second half down 2-0 and reduced their fouls up to the 70th minute, until they fouled again. This allowed San Diego’s senior midfielder Riley Harbour to head the ball into the net off of junior forward Uly de la Cal’s free kick.

The 3-0 loss put the Pioneers record at 6-8-2 overall and 2-6-2 conference, which slims their chances of making playoffs. “It’s unfortunate that we were unable to get the win and get an even record in our conference,” said Sauer. “But I am grateful for having the opportunity to play college soccer and to have met so many great guys, especially being from Germany. Everything was new to me when I first came out here, but I have enjoyed myself and that is because of East Bay soccer.”