Sophomore forward of Barcelona, Spain, Joel Gomez, took matters into his own hands on Sunday as he slotted in an immaculate game-winning goal for Point Park men’s soccer with only 13 seconds remaining.
The Pioneers kicked off against the Wheeling Cardinals at home in a highly anticipated first game of conference play in the Mountain East Conference.
The Pioneers are coming off a historic season where they made the MEC tournament for the first time in their young program history. They finished with an overall record of 8-8-2 and a record of 7-5-2 in conference play.
On the contrary, the Wheeling Cardinals are looking to bounce back this year.. They finished with an underwhelming overall record of 1-15-1 and went winless in the MEC recording a record of 0-12-1.
But the boys in white and green were well aware that this year was going to be different. Last offseason, the Cardinals hired Jack Shearer as their seventh head coach in program history, hoping to dramatically change the trajectory of the team. In his two opening games with Wheeling he did just that: the Cardinals suffered a close loss to Cal (Pa.), a team that had their number in the previous year, and won in convincing fashion against Walsh.
For the Pioneers there was also a plethora of turnover as they added 22 new faces to the squad.
In the opening 20 minutes, both teams were spreading the width trying to play their dynamic forwards. Point Park benefited early on from the skill sets of forwards Gomez and Lorenzo Grispello as they asked many questions of the Cardinals back line.
However, the momentum flipped in an instant, when the midfielder made an unforced error, and freshman Dominic Lopez-Aceeves took full advantage of the mistake, escaping the pressure of the Pioneers back line and proceeding to play a beautiful low driven ball to midfielder Elie Simon. Simon was able to redirect the shot into the bottom left corner in the 31st minute.
Wheeling’s lead was short lived as substitute striker Rocco Domenighini tied the game on a header from an exquisite cross played off the foot of Gomez.
As the game wound down, star striker Hector Moreno played a ball out wide to Gomez who miraculously smashed it into the top right corner to win the game 2-1.
“It wasn’t our best game, but our guys stayed with it,” coach Cameron Williams said postgame.
Gomez described the moment simply: “In the end I got the cut, shot it, and it was a really good goal,”
The Pioneers are now 1-0 in MEC play and 2-1-1 overall. They travel to take on West Liberty tonight at 7:30 p.m.