After its 3-1 Sept. 5 win against the Air Force Academy Falcons, the UCA men’s soccer team had one of its early first-half goals featured as No. 1 in ESPN’s SportsCenter Top 10 plays compilation.
In his first goal of the season for the Bears, junior midfielder Jerry Gutierrez performed a bicycle kick on a ball passed to him by senior forward Sebastian Andreassen.
The bicycle kick, which refers to Gutierrez’s midair backward somersault, struck the ball into the middle center of the goal, just out of reach from the Falcons’ senior goalkeeper, John Byszewski.
“I love it. Bicycle. When you do that, you make No. 1,” the SportsCenter broadcaster said.
Gutierrez said, “The ball was a bit behind me, so I turned my back towards the goal and just fell backwards and did the bicycle kick.”
“Being No. 1 SportsCenter was also a surprise the next morning, and caught me off guard, but it was amazing to see the support of teammates and friends from all over,” Gutierrez said.
Later in the half, Gutierrez assisted winger graduate student Bernard Assibey-Rhule in scoring his first-ever goal playing for UCA.
Sophomore defender Richard-Miguel Lapointe-Guevara scored UCA’s third and final goal near the beginning of the second half, assisted by Andreassen and senior defender Bradyn Knutson.
The Bears kept the Falcons off the board until the game’s final four minutes when the Falcons senior Jake Chaffetz scored a goal.
Assibey-Rhule said, “I mean, we kind of let ourselves down with the goal at the end, but I think if we score three goals in a match, I think that’s good.”
The win is the team’s first home game after starting the season with a tie and two losses.
“We’ve been on the road a lot. I think it was fun and time to finally play home,” Assibey-Rhule said.
Coach Frank Kohlenstein said, “The whole starting crew, and then three or four of the first subs, they all put in a good effort, and you can see that we’re getting better and they’re learning from the situations we got into on our road trips.”
Kohlenstein said to get better, the Bears do more than just practice.
“We watch video of the other team. We talk about what the other team’s strengths and weaknesses are. We talk about the pluses and minuses of what we did,” Kohlenstein said.
“The assistant coaches, one does our team and the other one does the other team, so it really helped us get ready,” Kohlenstein said. “They have to take all the video and get it down to like 20 minutes so the guys can sort of … we compress all that knowledge.”
A compilation of all 3 goals made by the Bears, including the bicycle kick, can be found on the @ucamenssoccer Instagram page.
After their win at the Bill Stephens Track and Soccer Complex, the announcer said lightning was spotted about 11 miles away. Kohlenstein moved the team to the men’s soccer team house nearby to celebrate.
“Over there, when they all get in there, there’s something cool we do after we win the match that you’ll even be able to hear when you’re outside,” Kohlenstein said.
After filing into the garage for a few minutes, the Bears sang, chanted and banged on the walls to celebrate their win.
The Bears will travel to Louisville, Ky. for their Sept. 17 game against the Bellarmine Knights, which starts at 6 p.m.