The Irvine Valley Lasers looking to prove a point, dominated the opening minutes of play on Tuesday Sept. 20.

The Lasers constantly pressured the Hornet’s, who had difficulty getting out of their own half of the field.

The referee awarded a questionable penalty in favor of the Lasers early on in the first half.

Midfielder Jose Rivera took advantage and converted it into the top left corner to put the Lasers up 1-0.

“He saw what he saw, he made the call, that’s part of the game, in those moments its subject to opinion and that’s his job, to make those calls,” said Hornet’s head coach, Greg Aviles.

Lasers defender Taylor Davidson received a straight red card after a fierce straight legged tackle into Hornet’s attacker Gerald Abessolo.

Abessolo was helped off the pitch, but later on returned to play.

The freshman Rene Santillan, looking to level the score, shot a brilliant free kick heading toward the upper right corner which was pushed onto the post by Lasers goalkeeper Sigler.

Lasers Daniel Segal set up a counter attack by lobbing the ball toward the left side of the field to Jose Gamboa who played it back to Segal inside the penalty area, who chipped it over goalkeeper Julian Ochoa to make it 2-0.

The Hornet’s went into halftime losing 2-0.

“We put more guys up front, put more pressure on their backline, we know they were going to sit in, so we really wanted to force them to be outnumbered in the back,” said Aviles on adjustments going into the second half.

Midfielder Matthew Lares received the ball inside the penalty area to open the Hornet’s scoring in the 58th minute by thumping it past the goalkeeper into the bottom right corner to bring life back into the game.

Sophomore Eduin Mungia burst down the right wing in the 62nd minute and was awarded a penalty after being taken down inside the penalty box.

Mungia aiming for his sixth goal of the season was denied by Sigler.

A late goal by Lasers Albert Chavez was enough to seal the game.

Unfortunately, a stoppage time goal by freshman Jacob Aldana wan’t enough as Hornet’s lose 3-2.

The Hornet’s received their first loss of the season and now have six wins, one tie, and one loss.

“We still believe in our game plan, and what we do,” said Aviles.

“Theres no deterring from that, we wouldn’t gotten this far if we didn’t think so, but there’s obviously things we need to get better at, we go back to training and we keep going to work.”