Box Score HAYWARD -- If San Francisco State is the measuring stick for the Dominican University of California men's soccer program, the Penguins have taken great strides toward respectability.

They just need to get a little older and a little wiser.

With a starting lineup consisting of six freshmen and with as many as eight frosh playing in crunch time, Dominican couldn't recover from a first-half goal and dropped its season-opening game, a 2-0 loss at Pioneer Stadium in the Cal State East Bay Fall Classic.

It was Dominican's ninth loss in 10 career games against the Gators but the competitive gap between the two is narrowing fast.

“The players left it all out there. I've got no issues with their effort,” said Director of Soccer Jon Delano. “We made a couple of technical mistakes playing in the back but they are good mistakes to have because they are controllable ones. We'll go back and watch the film, break it down and get better.”

The Penguins were on their heels from the start, as SF State's Antonio Ugarte nearly scored 17 seconds into the game, forcing Dominican goalkeeper Casey Gibson to make the stop. But Ugarte managed to score about 20 minutes later.

After that, Dominican's defense, led by sophomore Sam Vella, tightened. The Penguins played even with the Gators.

Delano said Dominican had “3-to-4 concrete scoring opportunities” but struggled to string together enough consecutive passes to create a great one. In the first half, freshman Nuri Bon-Acosta played a nice ball to sophomore teammate David Mendez, but Gator goalkeeper Mike McNeill beat him to it. Similarly Robin Goldschmidt set up freshman Kolby Mitnick, but he couldn't get a good angle to get a good look at the goal.
“Each opportunity that we created was actually through playing soccer and not hoofing the ball forward,” Delano said.

In the second half, the Penguins were pressing, especially after freshman Victor Robles subbed into the game 15 minutes in. Bon-Acosta nearly set up Robles to score on a pass in the box with 10 minutes left in the game, but McNeill came out to make the save.

“(Robles) play was pretty inspiring and gave us a good lift and good energy,” Delano said. “It's unfortunate we gave up that second goal because we were trying to press numbers forward. We started to create some run-up play for us.”

San Francisco State's Jose Vitela, one of six new junior college transfers on the Gators' roster this season, capitalized, scoring an unassisted goal with 5:06 to play in the non-conference contest.

The Gators outshot the Penguins 11-6 in the contest, yet Dominican played stronger as the game wore on.  First-game nerves progressed into steadier play.

“It's good that we have all these young players on the field getting all these opportunities because  I think it only makes us better in the long run,” Delano said. “There's no good time to roll out youth so every experience is beneficial for them.”

The Penguins will play the host team, Cal State East Bay, in Hayward on Saturday at 7:00 p.m.