The Hawks men’s soccer team continued their undefeated streak of four games as they took on and defeated Taft College on Oct. 11.

While the Hawks came out on top 2-0, they came into the game with a disadvantage.

“I think our performance in the first half was certainly better than the second half,” said head coach Ron Preble. “A couple reasons; number one we were dinged up, we were missing eight starters. A couple starters that did start today, that played, are some guys that have been a bit injured.”

Injuries and benched starters did not keep the team down, freshman forward Isaac McDaniel intercepted a pass from Taft and dribbled down the field before sending the ball straight into the net for the Hawks first goal of the game.

“It feels good beating a team that has been ranked higher than us, and since we’re all freshmen it feels good to beat a team that has more experience than we do,” McDaniel said.

Throughout the game, play was slowed by the Hawks who encountered numerous foul calls. By games end they had five players yellow carded compared to none for Taft.

“We need to quit fouling so much. We foul a lot outside the box, giving up dangerous free kicks all around,” said freshman goalkeeper Carter Giroux. “We get too many yellow cards. Ron has a rule here, if you get a yellow card you can’t play the rest of the game because he doesn’t want any red cards, so we have to stop getting yellow cards and dumb stuff like that.”

Both teams fought for the ball in the second half, as more fouls and yellow cards were called on the Hawks.

It wasn’t until the last minutes of the game that the Hawks managed to score once again. McDaniel managed to strike a ball still in the air past Taft’s goalie, sealing the Hawks’ win.

“It felt great to score that goal, we were 1-0 and that’s not a good lead,” McDaniel said. “Once I put that goal in, it made me feel like we had a comfortable place at home on our field.”

Preble said that the team’s football was good and the ideas they train and play with were there during the game, but the team lost sight in the second half. However, he also talked about the positive side, his team kept battling, they dug deep and found a way to score another goal to put the game away.

“Guys are getting chances because of those injuries, so that is a positive side for them,” Preble said. “But as far as us having our starting eleven, our best eleven, I don’t think we’ve had our best eleven on the field all year. We haven’t had the top eleven kids play in a match together, without at least one player being injured.”