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LACEY, Wash. – Titus Grant netted two first-half goals Thursday, giving Seattle Pacific a rare early lead, and set up a second-half score to secure Seattle Pacific's 3-1 victory over Saint Martin's in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference men's soccer game at SMU Soccer Field.
 
Grant scored in the 18th and 32nd minutes, upping his team-high total to seven goals this season, and played a part in his team gaining a man advantage. A cross from Grant set up Mario Vukic for the 59th-minute insurance tally.
 
"We played one of the more complete games we've played on the year," said SPU coach Mark Collings. "We were good defensively, possession-wise and of course putting balls in the back of the net. When you do those things you are going to win games, and today we did."
 
Grant's Great Game
A junior forward from Colorado Springs, Colo., Grant registered his second brace of the year as he also posted a pair versus Northwest Nazarene on Oct. 10 in Seattle. He is the only Falcon to record more than one goal in a 2019 game. This was Grant's fifth career multi-goal game, including a hat trick on Oct. 13, 2018.
 
"Today was really what we've been expecting from Titus all year. He was locked in," Collings said of Grant, who topped the team with 13 goals last season.
 
"Saint Martin's was doing some things tactically that maybe suited him a little bit more. Fortunately for us we were able to find him in those spots. Titus definitely looked like he was really focused for this game today."
 
Three goals have been the magic number for the Falcons (3-7-1), who were victorious in all three games when netting a trio of scores and failed to win when tallying less than a triple. Their league record improved to 2-4-0.

Neutralizing the GNAC's Top Goal Man
 

SPU kept GNAC leading scorer Brandon Madsen off the scoreboard. He entered the game with 12 goals, double the total of the next-highest player in the conference statistics.
 
Madsen was limited to two shots, but was credited with an assist on Sebastian Navarro's 39th-minute goal that drew SMU within 2-1. The Saints (7-5-2) saw their GNAC record drop to 2-4-1. They trail the all-time series 4-20-1 and a 2-1 win in the previous meeting last year stopped a 17-game losing skid versus SPU.
 
Seattle Pacific got two early shots from Skylor Rose inside the first nine minutes. He made his inaugural collegiate start as did freshman classmate Cole Rogers. Drawing his first start of the season, and just the second overall, was sophomore Jordan Greenshield.
 
In the 12th minute, Greenshield was thrown down outside the box, earning a free kick. Defender Ed Weise bent a 27-yard shot around the right side of the SMU wall, but goalkeeper Dylan Shaw was waiting at the center of the goal to grab the ball.
 

Starting the Scoring
Exactly 18 minutes into the contest, Grant was tripped during a dribbling into the box. He stepped to the 12-yard spot and calmly stroked the penalty kick into the upper left corner to open the scoring.
 
That marked just the third time the Falcons got the game's first goal and they have a 2-0-1 record in those outings.
 
"It's honestly something we talked about," Collings said of notching the game's initial goal. "We scored first in three games and we now have two wins and a draw in those games so it's definitely important.
 
"We talked about trying to get out and put teams under pressure. Sometimes when you're not walking away with results in games it can cause teams to get tentative. We've tried to be the opposite. We want to be the aggressor. No matter how many wins or losses we have on the year, we're going to approach the game the same way and that's to go after teams."
 
The Saints were prevented from getting off a shot until the 24th minute. Their first foray at goal was dangerous as Ethan Anastasi had a point-blank try from 15 yards sail wide of the left post.
 
Their second shot came two minutes later, off the foot of Madsen, and it also missed wide to the left.
 
In the 29th minute a red card was issued to the Saints' Brandon Kam for a foul that stopped a clear goal-scoring opportunity.
 
Saint Sent Off
SPU defender Nik Reierson lobbed a high ball from the back line into the offensive half. Grant raced to the ball and blocked an attempted clearance by Kam 40 yards from the goal. As Grant reached the loose ball with an open path to the goal, he was taken down by Kam who was then sent off, leaving SMU to play with 10 men for the final 61:41.
 
Barely three minutes later, the Falcons capitalized on the extra player and Grant netted his second goal. He received a pass from Reierson and flicked a seven-yard shot across the goalmouth and into the lower left corner at 31:15.
 
Sophomore Lars Helleren made his only save in the 33rd minute. He denied a prime opportunity from Madsen, whose header was veering toward the left side of the goal before the SPU goalkeeper intervened by diving parallel to the ground to nudge the ball past the post.
 
Helleren's counterpart reciprocated with a diving deflection near the right post of a curving 36th-minute shot by Greenshield. Shaw made six saves for SMU, which was outshot by a 14-9 count. SPU was far more accurate, putting nine attempts directly on frame to just two for the hosts.
 
The Saints cut their deficit in half at 38:31. Madsen slipped a through pass into the center of the box for Sebastian Navarro, who slid a low, 11-yard shot inside the right post.
 
The Falcons went into the locker room ahead 2-1 with only their second halftime lead of the season.
 
Solid Second Half

Seven minutes after intermission, Vukic broke fee into the box with only the goalkeeper to beat. His low outside-foot attempt was snared by Shaw.
 
The SPU sophomore made amends seven minutes later with his fourth goal of the campaign. Grant served a cross from the left flank that found Vukic in the center of the box for a 12-yard finish to the right side at 58:49.
 
"We want to get service into the box and sometimes early service is great because you can get in behind the back line. But we felt like at times our wide players have been serving too early," Collings described. "So Titus really executed perfectly. By taking a couple extra touches it not only shifted the defense across, but it allowed our guys to get forward. And Mario did a great job once he got on the end of that cross."
 
The Saints mustered four shots during the final 20 minutes but couldn't score. Two of those attempts came in rapid succession during the 71st minute as Jason Fairhurst had a shot blocked and Oscar Aguilar put the rebound off the left post.
 
Next Game
The Falcons men return to Seattle on Saturday for their second-to-last home game. They have a 7 p.m. rematch with Concordia-Portland at Interbay Stadium. The Cavaliers were 2-0 victors in this season's first meeting, on Oct. 17 in Portland.
 
"We're going to enjoy this for sure, then we'll think about Concordia and what we need to do to reverse our fortunes from last week," Colling said. "They are a very good team and they pose some matchup issues for us, for sure. They did a good job of taking away things that we want to do, so we'll have to adjust a little bit."

 
NCAA MEN'S SOCCER
Thursday, October 24, 2019
SMU Soccer Field / Lacey, Wash.
 
Seattle Pacific 3, at Saint Martin's 1
 
Scoring – 1, SPU, Titus Grant (penalty kick), 18:00; 2, SPU, Grant (Nik Reierson), 31:15; 3, SMU, Sebastian Navarro (Brandon Madsen), 38:31; 4, SPU, Mario Vukic (Grant), 58:49.
 
                       1   2  --  TOTAL
Seattle Pacific        2   1  --    3
Saint Martin's         1   0  --    1
 
Shots – SPU 14, SMU 9.
Shots on Goal -- SPU 9, SMU 2.
Saves – SPU 1 (Lars Helleren), SMU 6 (Dylan Shaw).
Corner Kicks – SPU 5, SMU 8.
Fouls – SPU 11, SMU 8.
Offsides – SPU 10, SMU 1.
Red cards -- SPU 0, SMU 1 (Brandon Kam, 28:19)
 
Records
Seattle Pacific 3-7-1,  2-4-0 GNAC
Saint Martin's 7-5-2,  2-4-1 GNAC
 
Next SPU Men's Soccer Game
Concordia-Portland at Seattle Pacific
Saturday, Oct. 26, 7:00 p.m. PDT
Interbay Stadium / Seattle, Wash.