Sonoma Wraps Up Regular Season With Win

Rohnert Park, CA - Sonoma State wrapped up the regular season with a 13-12 OT win over Chico State Wildcats.  Senior Brent Tovrea got the game winner just under 1 minute into overtime off a feed from Senior Spencer O'Reilly.

The Seawolves lead wire to wire opening the first quarter with a 3-1 lead.  As the offense peppered Chico State with shots and possessions the defense held firm allowing only 2 man-down goals in the quarter and goalie Andrew Moore ('21) came up with some big saves.  Sonoma went into halftime leading 6-3.

Chico came out of the gates in the second half getting the first two goals of the half to close the gap to 6-5, but Sonoma tightened the screws defensively and shut them out for the rest of the quarter while the offense put in four to take a 10-5 lead going into the final frame.

Some timely faceoff wins and great shots pulled Chico to 10-8 with 9 minutes left.  Sonoma got one back to lead 11-8, but then a flurry of goals brought it to 12-11 with a few minutes left.  Chico was able to get one more goal from Junior Colin Merwin, but Sonoma snagged the last possession of the game and with just a few seconds left Chico State got a big save on a Joey Piombo shot.  

In overtime, sophomore Kieran Fara won the faceoff, but the ensuing scrum squirted the ball to the corner where we had a big ground ball by sophomore Connor Schaal who helped clear and get the ball back to the offense.  After an initial dodge the ball got moved through the backside and Brent Tovrea stepped in for the game winner.

For Sonoma, it wrapped up the regular season and was the first and only game played on the home grass in front of a rowdy crowd of approximately 1,000 fans.  Sonoma qualifies for playoffs and will face #17 Stanford in the opening round of the WCLL tournament.  

Photo Credit Brian Baer