Sacramento State men’s soccer defeated California State University, Northridge 2-1 and improved its Big West Conference record to 2-1 on Wednesday at Hornet Field.

According to Sac State head coach Michael Linenberger, the Hornets were expecting a tough match against CSUN.

“Northridge is a good team, we knew they would have a whole bunch of opportunities,” Linenberger said. “They are a good attacking team and they have some explosive players.”

Linenberger said he told the team in order to win against CSUN, the team has to work hard on blocking shots, do last minute tackles, block crosses and clear the ball. He said the goal was to try to not to let CSUN score more than one goal.

“We’ve done that four times this year [where] we’ve held our opponent to 0 or 1 and we’ve won two and tied two,” Linenberger said. “It’s when we start giving away multiple goals is when we get ourselves in trouble.”

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In the beginning of the first half, the Hornets started off slow and didn’t create many opportunities to score a goal, said defenders Antonio Andres and Jack Larter. However, during the end of the first half, the team started to gain more confidence and gained more possession of the ball, according to Larter.

The Hornets had seven shots on goals in the first half, but weren’t able to score. At the end of the first half, the score was 0-0.

In the second half, the Hornets were able to carry the confidence they had from the end of the first half and created two scoring opportunities, said Larter. The first goal was scored when sophomore forward Justin Bedig passed the ball to junior defender Abraham Rosales.

The Hornets scored a second goal after freshmen forward Benji Kikanovic passed the ball to sophomore defender Antonio Andres. Even though the Hornets scored both goals in the second half, The Hornets had less shots on goals than CSUN.

The Hornets had five shots on goal in the second half and CSUN had seven shots on goal. However, CSUN was able to score one goal when their sophomore midfielder John Andersen got a shot after the ball was deflected.

CSUN had many opportunities to score a goal with the Hornets freshman goalie Ryan Curtis having to save five shots in the first half and two shots in the second half. Linenberger said Curtis played well after having a tough time against University of California, Irvine on Oct. 6, with Irvine scoring two goals in the game.

The defense also had a role in the win against CSUN since they were able to defend many opportunities, according to Linenberger.

“Coach said before the game [that] we got [to] work together and work hard off the ball and keep pressing,” Larter said. “We just eventually decided we have to have the mentality of working hard defensively as well, we can’t just work hard offensively.”

The Hornets next match is a Big West Conference against Cal State Fullerton on Oct. 13 at Fullerton.