Hornet Soccer Field has never had much of a mystique to it, but so far this season, it’s been a nightmare for opposing players of a streaking Sacramento State men’s soccer squad.

Sac State (4-7-1, 3-3-0 MPSF) remained undefeated at home on Sunday with its fourth consecutive victory on familiar turf, winning 2-1 over visiting UNLV (4-8-0, 3-3-0).

Sophomore midfielder/forward Ryan Rhoads scored his team-leading fourth goal of the season, all coming in the last four games that he’s played forward, to spark the Hornets’ early offensive outburst.

In the just the third minute of the match, junior midfielder Andrew Tamm sent a through ball towards the goal, making it a race to the ball between Rhoads and UNLV goalkeeper Peter Clitheroe; Rhoads got to the ball first and sweep-kicked it to the lower left post past a diving Clitheroe for the goal.

“It was a great pass to where only I could get it,” Rhoads said. “As long as we got the goal it doesn’t matter.”

It was more of the same in the first half, as the Hornets had a myriad of opportunities to put the game away early, but didn’t cash in on any of them until the last seconds of the first half.

Junior Midfielder Ricky Rodriguez sent a through ball in toward the right of the goal, and with 1.6 seconds left in the half, sophomore forward Eli Millan received the pass and sent a low ball to the far left of the net, giving him his third goal of the season, and his team a 2-0 lead going into the half.

“(Head coach Michael Linenberger) told me I could score before the half, and I felt like I could too, so with about 10 seconds left, I saw my opportunity,” Millan said. “I got the ball, made a fake, and put it in.

“I felt really good because it was in the last few seconds and it gave us a bigger lead.”

In the 57th minute, Rod Dyachenko got a cross from Deshawn Woolery, and scored on a kick past Sac State goalkeeper Matt McDougall, tightening the game up, 2-1.

Just minutes later, Sac State got a break when Clitheroe received a red card for being out of his box and touching the ball with his hand, which equals an automatic ejection, giving Sac State a one man advantage; however, the one man disadvantage was an impetus for UNLV, as they came on even stronger after the loss of their goalkeeper.

“It happens frequently in soccer, when a team goes down a player, they seem to play harder than the team that is at the advantage, maybe because we became a little more relaxed due to the extra man; it’s a strange phenomenon,” Linenberger said. “We started to panic and not play the whole field when they came on stronger; I almost had a heart attack.”

However, Sac State withstood the UNLV barrage of shots and held on to the 2-1 victory, thanks to a variety of acrobatic saves by McDougall.

“Our players worked really hard to make it a game at the end, even with one player down; we created a lot of scoring opportunities but only got one goal out of them,” UNLV head coach Barry Barto said. “We gave a few (goals) away at the beginning and that was difficult.”

All four of the Hornets’ wins this season have come at home and McDougall said that the improved play by the Hornets has been the result of an entire team effort and some great crowds at home.

“It’s been the whole team stepping up; they picked me up when I was struggling early in the season and we pick up each other as a whole,” McDougall said. “We’ve dug through the tough times and our home crowds have really helped us out, especially through these conference games.”

Linenberger echoed the same sentiment, but was quick to give praise for McDougall’s consistent work throughout the season.

“Dougs has had great games all year, especially with today, how the wind was swerving; he came up big.”

UNLV had more shots on goal than Sac State, 9-5; McDougall had eight saves on the day, and now has 68 for the year.

Rodriguez’s pass to Millan gave him his team-leading fourth assist of the season.

The Hornets play next at home on Oct. 22 at 4 p.m. against Denver.