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Leo Thompson shielding the ball from a defender.
UH Hilo Athletics
4
Winner Biola BU-MS (6-6-1, 4-2)
0
Hawai'i Hilo UHH-MS (3-8, 2-4)
Winner
Biola BU-MS
(6-6-1, 4-2)
4
Final
0
Hawai'i Hilo UHH-MS
(3-8, 2-4)
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
Biola BU-MS 1 3 4
Hawai'i Hilo UHH-MS 0 0 0

Game Recap: Men's Soccer | | Brandon Taylor, Assistant Sports Information Director

Eagles Erupt For Huge Win

Biola scores three times in a three-minute span at the start of the second half to bury Hawaii Hilo, 4-0.

KEAAU, Hawaii --- The lava flowing from the volcano near Hilo hasn't moved at a rapid pace for quite some time, so the Biola Eagles scoring streak at the beginning of the second half was the closest thing there's been to an eruption in a while.

After Hunter Finnegan gave the Eagles breathing room before halftime with a goal in the 38th minute, the Eagles buried three goals in a three-minute span at the beginning of the second half to take a 4-0 lead. Striker Leo Thompson scored back-to-back goals in the 52nd and 55th minute to give him a total of eight on the season before Akhigbe Unuigbe scored the first goal of his Biola career just 30 seconds after the restart from Thompson's second goal.

"The guys came in with a great combination of determination and frustration and that's what you saw out there tonight," said Head Coach Todd Elkins. "We only have ourselves to blame for the last game [a 1-0 loss to Chaminade] and sometime in games you try to put that behind you. But the guys brought the frustration with them into this game because there was so much that we didn't do that we should've done, that we needed to do."

Biola jumps back up to .500 at 6-6-1 over and now has 12 points in PacWest play at 4-2. The Eagles are also 2-0 against the Vulcans after they defeated Hawaii Hilo 3-1 at Al Barbour Field in 2017.

It only took Biola about seven minutes after the opening whistle to establish control of play and hold the ball on the Vulcans' defensive half. The Eagles defense allowed just two shots on the night and one on goal to help Alex Muir record his first clean sheet of the year.

In contrast, Head Coach Todd Elkins' attackers registered 21 shots and 10 on goal to score four times.

The Eagles took the first half lead on a sequence that traversed the entire field. Kousei Mattox threaded a great forward ball to forward Jack MacDonald 30 yards away from goal. MacDonald then found Hunter Finnegan on the far-left end of the box, where Finnegan promptly beat the keeper to the opposite post to give Biola the lead.

I think we had momentum when he hit that second goal and then we didn't turn back," said Elkins. "As a coach what you want is what happened tonight. We had a good first half and an even more decisive second half and that was great for the guys to fully focused headed into that second half and building on what they had started in the first."

Not long after the start of the second half Leo Thompson put the match away with back-to-back unassisted goals to give him a total of eight on the year. Thompson's best effort came in the 52nd minute, when he reached the area of the left of the penalty area, got back into the 18-yard box and fired a rocket past a Vulcans keeper that was still flat-footed on his line.

Thompson now has eight goals on the season, the most by a Biola striker since Joey O'Keefe scored 12 in 2015.

"I-B [Akhigbe Unuigbe] was very good defensively in the first half and he jumped on a couple loose balls in the first half," said Elkins. "He did that again in the second half on the one he scored. He jumped on it and he didn't look back, he went. The team celebrated that more than any other goal today and that's kind of his coming out moment for being on the team."

The Eagles will fly back home on Wednesday to face a quick turnaround with a match against Fresno Pacific on Saturday. The second-place Sunbirds play first-place Azusa Pacific on Thursday night.
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