The second men’s soccer game in the Causeway series this season between Sacramento State and UC Davis, found the Hornets on the losing side of a 1-0 game on Saturday at Hornet Field.

Sac State lost to the Aggies after junior forward Matt Wiesenfarth scored in the 34th minute of the match.

Wiesenfarth found the back of the net after two blocked shots from Hornets senior goalkeeper Cesar Castillo. In the process Castillo was flushed out of the goalie box leaving the net wide open for Wiesenfarth.

Sac State men’s soccer head coach Mike Linenberger said that his team never gave up after being down a goal.

“We have been like that all year, I am proud of this young team even though we didn’t have the success on the field,” Linenberger said. “The team never stopped working throughout the season.”

It was the last game for four Hornet seniors: Castillo, midfielder Almog Strikowski, forward Isaac Ikyurav and defender Nate Barr. Three of the four played in today’s game, the lone exception being Barr who was injured Sept. 12 against the University of San Francisco.

“We will miss all four of the players for what they brought to our team,” Linenberger said. ”One way to look at is that we will be returning a big group of the same players.”  

Sac State had its chances to score an equalizing goal but four of the six shots went wide or over the net. All three of Ikyurav’s shots went wide of the net.

Ikyurav scored the only goal while in a sitting position in the previous match against the Aggies Oct. 26. Ikyurav knew that it was going to take more than a lucky goal to find the back of the net to win this game.

“The energy was good coming into the game but we needed to keep up the energy throughout the game,” Ikyurav said. “We needed to take advantage of our shot opportunities when we had them and we didn’t do that today.”

With the loss, Sac State’s season is now over as the Hornets finished with an overall record of 3-11-4 and 1-8-1 in the Big West Conference.