Sacramento State men’s soccer has had a rough time on the road this season, having not won a game away from Hornet Soccer Field.

That statistic was not a good precursor to the start of Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play for the Hornets.

Sac State lost their first two crucial games in the Mountain Pacific play on the road on Friday and Sunday to fall to 1-6-1 for the year, but more importantly, 0-2-0 in conference play.

On Friday, the Air Force Falcons hosted the Hornets at Cadet Field.

The scoring started right off the bat for Air Force, as they took a 1-0 lead in just the 12th minute of the match when Marcus Sagastume sent a cross Colin Eames’ way, and Eames deposited it into the net from 10-yards out to beat Sac State goalkeeper Matt McDougall.

The Hornets only had five shots in the first half of play, as opposed to the 11 by the Falcons.

The second half of play was a bit of a different story, as the Hornets out shot the Falcons 9-7, but couldn’t capitalize on many of the opportunities, that is until the final minute of play.

Once again, Air Force gave Sac State no chance to get anything going offensively, or defensively, as they opened the second half with another goal.

Air Force’s Todd Myers scored on a header from a Daniel Bolin corner kick in the 51st minute of play to stomp out any chance of a comeback for Sac State.

The Hornets scored its lone goal on sophomore forward Eli Millan’s goal, assisted by sophomore defender Utodi Madu, from eight-yards-out in the final minute of play; it would be too little, too late for the Hornets, though, as they couldn’t muster up any other offense throughout the day, losing 2-1 to the Air Force Falcons.

Millan’s goal was his second of the season and Madu’s assist was his second, as well.

On Sunday, the Hornets stayed on the road to play their second MPSF game of the season against the Denver Pioneers, at Pioneer Field.

Though the opponents and fields were different, the match resulted in the same way for the Hornets: another critical conference loss; this loss wasn’t as close, as the Pioneers blew out the Hornets by the score of 4-1.

Denver’s Travis Hendricks and Jacob Chase both scored in the first half to put the Pioneers up to 2-0 going into the second period of play.

The Pioneers kept piling it on in the second half, as Hendricks scored once again, his fifth goal of the season, to put Denver up 3-0.

Senior defender Jesse Manton scored Sac State’s first goal of the day to pull the Hornets within two of the Pioneers.

In the 72nd minute, Manton beat Denver goalkeeper Justin Durst off of a corner kick to put Sac State on the board; it was Manton’s first goal of the season.

“I was all by myself near the goal and I was lucky enough to be all alone with the ball and I just put it in,” Manton says.

To cap off the scoring for the day, Denver’s Liam Girard scored on a penalty kick past McDougall to make the final score 4-1.

McDougall had a match-high nine saves on the day, while Durst only had to save three shots.

“It was tough to play up there (in Denver) with the altitude, but that’s not an excuse,” said senior forward Patrick Nelle, who had one of the nine shots Sac State recorded. “There are only so many things (head coach Michael Linenberger) can teach us, only so many plays and strategies; we have to be the ones to follow through on them.

“We’re just not clicking right now and we’re really low on morale; I can’t point to only one thing that’s wrong.”

The Hornets only had four shots on goal for the day, while the Pioneers had 13 shots on goal, 22 overall.

“I just don’t think we’re getting sufficient offense right now; we’re losing the ball at midfield way too much,” Manton says. “I can’t see the other teams being afraid of our offense, like we’re dangerous; we’re not dynamic enough up front.”

Senior midfielder Ryan Rhoads led the Hornets with three shots, two on goal.

Sac State will return home to host the defending Mountain Pacific champions, San Jose State this Friday at 4 p.m. at Hornet Soccer Field.