BOX SCORE

LA MIRADA, Calif. --- No. 2 Azusa Pacific University's Brandon Stirm scored a pair of goals to lead the Cougars to a 2-0 win over Biola University in a Golden State Athletic Conference men's soccer match on Saturday night in front of a standing-room only crowd of 734 at Al Barbour Field.

The Eagles drop to 6-9-0 on the season and are 2-5-0 in GSAC play while APU remains perfect at 13-0-0 and 7-0-0 in conference overall.

Azusa Pacific managed to get on the board first as Stirm collected the ball of a rebounded shot and fired it into the open net in the match's 27th minute.

The Eagles managed four shots in the first half with freshman Humberto Toscan having the best look, firing a shot from 20 yards out that was saved.

In the second half, Biola picked up the pace and began to get a number of great looks. In the 70th minute senior Brandon Gonzalez had a great look at the goal off a corner kick, heading the ball toward the far post. However, the Cougars netminder made a great diving save to keep the score 1-0.

Azusa added a huge insurance goal in the 86th minute, again off the foot of Stirm. Midfielder Ryan Cheek carried the ball down the far side of the field and sent in a low cross which Stirm was able to quickly gather and fire to the near post to put APU up 2-0.

The Cougars held an 18-7 shot advantage in the match, but freshman netminder Tyler Higgins made eight saves and did an outstangind job trying help Biola hang with the high-powered offense of APU. 

Azusa Pacific's goalkeeper James Crawford made three saves to earn the shutout.

The match ended a difficult stretch for the Eagles as they faced six nationally-ranked teams in their last eight matches. Despite going 2-6-0 over that stretch, Biola still has a good shot at making the playoffs should it earn points in each of its final three matches.

Biola starts its final roadtrip of the regular season, traveling to Westmont for a GSAC match on Wednesday (Oct. 17) at 3:00 p.m.