ARCATA, Calif.- After seeing an early 2-0 lead evaporate with a comeback effort by the visiting Sonoma State Seawolves, the Humboldt State men's soccer team managed to counter with a late penalty kick by Mumbi Kwesele in a spirited 3-2 victory at College Creek field Sunday afternoon.
 
Chris Cherms continued his stellar work in goal with several spectacular efforts on Sonoma State breakaways, and saved eight shots on the day.
 
Freshman Ethan Waters put the Jacks up 2-0 with goals at 3:11 and 4:59, the first unassisted with a nice poke over the keeper's head from in the box and the second off a brilliant header assist by Frankie Calderon. It looked like the rout was on, but the Seawolves managed to stop the bleeding and were equal to the task early in the second half. Sonoma State pushed across scores at 48:11 (Angel Acevedo unassisted) and 52:23 (Sebastian Santos from Evan Roehrig).
 
Not one minute after Sonoma's final tally, though, HSU's Daniel Allred earned a foul in the box and Kwesele's penalty kick found the bottom right corner of the net to provide the winning margin. From there, despite repeated Sonoma threats and corner-kicks--the Seawolves out-cornered the Jacks 9-0 and outshot them 20-8--the Jacks were able to hold on.
 
"We knew we were going to have a lot of energy to start the game and we wanted to press them," said HSU Head Coach Fred Jungemann. "It was just a question of whether or not we were going to take advantage of that, close them down, and get them in situations where we could force a mistake."
 
Jungemann said that whereas in past years the kind of rally Sonoma put together may have caused his team to become unmoored, this year's squad is fighting hard with great team spirit and was unfazed.
 
"Maybe it doesn't show up on the stat sheet as much," said Jungemann, "But Danny Allred worked his socks off today, created the PK that gave us the game-winning goal, was involved in the pressing of the first two goals, and would probably be our MVP on the day."
 
The team, now 3-0 in conference play, will next turn its attention to home contests this weekend with Chico State, Friday at 3 p.m., and Stanislaus State, Sunday at 2 p.m.