One thing that doesn’t mix well with a young and inexperienced back line is a veteran striker who was the scoring leader in the Pacific-10 conference last season. The Pac-10 is home to three of the nation’s top men’s soccer programs; including defending champions UCLA, No. 6 Stanford and No. 16 California.

And in the mix with those teams every season in the Pac-10 is Oregon State and it’s leading goal scorer Alan Gordon. Gordon, who led the Pac-10 with 34points last season, will join the Beavers in a regular season matchup against Sac State Thursday at Hornet Soccer Field at 5 p.m.

Gordon has been held scoreless in his first two games of the season, but with a young defensive team marking him Thursday, things could change very quickly.

Sophomore goalkeeper Matt McDougall tallied six saves in the Hornets season opener, a 2-1 overtime win over UC Riverside, and he may be more busy tonight when Gordon and 2002 Pac-10 honorable mention Ryan Johnson look to find the back of the net.

Things don’t look much better for the Hornets on the other side of the ball either. OSU’s starting backline is dramatically more experienced than Sac State. Three of the four defenders are seniors, and two, Christian vanBlommestein and Kurt Ness, were all-conference honorable mentions last season.

To top off the defense, OSU senior goalkeeper Peter Billmeyer is a two-time Pac-10 saves leader.

The good news is that in both of OSU’s games this year, opposing strikers have found a way to put the ball past the 6-foot-1, 200-pound goalkeeper. The Beavers look even more beatable when examining the stat box. They fell in overtime to San Diego State 2-1and in their 2-1 victory over the University of San Diego, the Beavers were outshot 11-5.

Hornet strikers Patrick Nelle, Andrew Koeckemoer, Eric Rabbon and Kris McAlavey – who scored a golden goal in overtime on Sunday -may have several opportunities to give Sac State a lead, while McDougall will look to post a clean sheet against one of the nation’s top scorers.