LAS VEGAS – Senior forward
George Kelley's fifth goal of the season early in the second half tied the match at 1-all, but UNLV's Danny Musovski scored with four minutes left in regulation to give the Rebels a 2-1 win over the Huskies Friday night in the WAC opener for both teams.
"The boys fought hard tonight against the reigning conference champs and the 27th-ranked team in the country in RPI," said head coach
Steve Jones. "The boys went right at them [in the second half]. We had a one-on-one that the keeper made the save and three more chances. We tied the game with a great effort from two players in the moment, in Kenny [
Kenneth Shonaike] and George. Although the shot count gave them a big advantage, it didn't tell the story of how hard our boys worked to win this game. We had some great chances to win this game tonight and it just didn't happen for us."
Thilo Borgmann paced HBU (4-5-0 overall, 0-1-0 WAC) with two shots, both hitting the target. Kelley,
Darrell Johnson, and
Josue Palomino had a shot apiece.
Philip Poser took the loss in the complete-game effort between the pipes as he made three saves.
Both Oscar Velazquez and Kevin Partida had a match-high four shots to lead UNLV (7-2-0, 1-0-0). Richard Garness stopped three shots for the win in goal.
Rodrigo Fuentes gave the hosts a 1-0 lead 12 minutes into the match, as he fired a shot from 15 yards out. Twelve minutes later, Partida narrowly gave the Rebels a 2-0 lead as his shot hit the cross bar.
Kelley tied the match with an individual effort in the 52nd minute, tying the match at 1-all. Shonaike set things in motion by winning the ball and dribbling through a couple of Rebel players. A defender hit the ball and it bounced to Kelley, who went through the defense and scored one-on-one on Garness.
The teams went back and forth until Musovski's tally with only four minutes left in regulation. Partida passed the ball to Velazquez, who sent in a cross to Musovski, who headed the ball past Poser.
HBU had a chance to tie the match with a corner kick in the 88th minute, but to no avail.
UNLV had the advantage over the Huskies in both shots and corner kicks.
HBU will look to regroup when it plays at Grand Canyon Sunday at 9 pm central.
