McMinnville, Ore. | Without even missing a beat, the Warner Pacific University Men's Soccer team rebounded from a heartbreaking overtime loss last week in the season opener to notch a 4-0 win against host NCAA DIII school Linfield University.

In a game that featured four different knights to score goals in, it was a tale of two extremely different stories, as the Warner Pacific Knights couldn't seem to do anything wrong, while the Linfield Wildcats couldn't seem to catch a break.

Picking up right where he left off, Knights forward Nick Evans opened the scoring tonight with his second goal of the year on a cross coming from his left off the foot of forward Hunter Leach, who was credited with the assist. Evans has now scored 5 goals in his last 5 collegiate games (2020-2021).

Not even 10 minutes later, Leach got an opportunity of his own. On a deep cross from defender Kai Flugel that had the Wildcats' goalkeeper Julian Inches stretching within literal inches from the ball, Hunter was able to rebound off the crossbar and past the dive of a sprawling Inches.

Rounding off the first half of scoring was transfer junior Felix Nava, who was given an amazing opportunity from an Alex Nana corner kick that put the ball just in front of the penalty box line, where Nava had a running start to strike the ball straight past the wall of Linfield defenders and into the back of the net.

Even Arturo Bahena, the reigning Cascade Collegiate Conference goal-leader from the 2020 season, had to get in on the scoring action. Following a penalty on the Wildcats drawn by Knights defender Juan Gudino, Bahena took and scored the penalty kick to make it 4-0 Knights.

Despite having an incredible offensive showing (where the Knights outshot the Wildcats 23-5), a lot can be said about the Hunter VanCleave led defense that most notably did not allow a single shot on goal tonight. Warner Pacific goalkeeper Alexis Calderilla-Hurtado picks up the shutout win without having to record a single save thanks to this experienced group of upper classman in front of him.

For the Wildcats, midfielder Romario Mendoza led the team with 3 of the 5 team shots coming on his own accord in an otherwise lopsided night offensively.

The Warner Pacific Men's Soccer team will take the rest of the week to recover and get some extra regular season practice in before hosting Pacific Lutheran University on Friday, September 10^th at 7pm at the Eastside Timbers Sports Complex in Portland, Ore.