On Friday, the UC San Diego men’s soccer came up against Cal State San Marcos in attempt to extend its 8-game winning streak, with its last loss coming in Sept. 15 at the hands of Chico State. Meanwhile, San Marcos had a tough task on the day as it has been unable to put a tally in the win column in its last eight games. On paper, the Tritons were clearly the better team, however the Cougars still gave the Tritons a run for their money on the day.  

Cal State San Marcos showed grit and fight in the game as they took the early lead in the eighth minute of the match to give them the belief that they could possibly get something out of the match. But in a match where you’re the obvious favorite, you have to respond and that is exactly what the Tritons did. In minute 25, redshirt senior midfielder Steven Ortiz led the charge as he beautifully got up into the air and headed the ball to the far post and into the goal to make it 1–1. Just 10 minutes later, UCSD would take the lead as the backline of San Marcos failed to clear the ball and would be punished as freshman midfielder Brett Jones would react first to the missed clearance and give the Tritons a 2–1 lead. However, in a reserved second half for the Tritons, where they had zero shots attempted, they allowed the Cougars to crawl back into the match and get a 70th-minute equalizer to send it to overtime.

As the match went into overtime, two 10-minute halves, neither team could find the back of the net in the first half of overtime. Though with five minutes remaining in the second half of overtime, Jones made the difference and scored the game-winning goal to give the Tritons’a 3–2 victory and extend the their unbeaten streak to nine.