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Lawrence Kwazema celebrates after scoring his third and final goal of the night in BU's 6-1 win over Bethesda
George Rodriguez
1
Bethesda (CA) BUC (3-3-0, 0-0-0)
6
Winner Biola BIO (1-3-0, 0-3-0)
Bethesda (CA) BUC
(3-3-0, 0-0-0)
1
Final
6
Biola BIO
(1-3-0, 0-3-0)
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
Bethesda (CA) BUC 0 1 1
Biola BIO 1 5 6

Game Recap: Men's Soccer | | Angelina Staumont, Sports Information Director

Kwazema Scores Hat Trick

Lawrence Kwazema led BU with three goals in BU’s first win of the season.

LA MIRADA, Calif. --- The Biola Men's Soccer team earned its first win of the season behind a dominant performance from junior Lawerence Kwazema, who finished the match with a hat trick. Kwazema became only the second player since BU transitioned to NCAA Division II to accomplish the feat, leading Head Coach Torrey Stricklin to his first Biola win. 

Coach Stricklin could not be more proud of what he saw from his team tonight. "We played the way we wanted to play for 90 minutes tonight," said Stricklin. "It was the most collective team performance we've had all season."

The Eagles received contributions from just about everyone on the pitch tonight. Sophomores Gabriel Berthoud and Ruben Neubauer logged their first career goals in the 6-1 victory, junior Aidan Hill found the back of the net for a goal of his own and goalkeeper Mark Greenberg earned his first career win defending the goal. But no one could overlook the performance from the Nigeria native, Lawrence Kwazema. Kwazema tallied three goals and an assist for the Eagles while crediting his teammates for motivating him to accomplish the feat. 

"I saw the effort from our guys, everyone was hungry to win today and that's the type of mentality we've been talking about throughout practice," said Kwazema. "We want to win. We battled and we fought for each other, It was amazing!"

As a natural center back, tonight was Kwazema's first night being on the attack and it paid dividends for Stricklin and his team. "We've noticed certain things at training with Lawrence, as a team we have struggled to score this spring so we decided to change things up and put him up top," said Stricklin. The decision paid off for the Eagles. 

Kwazema was sure to point out the performances from his teammates all throughout the match as guys were making plays all over the field. "It fired me up," said Kwazema. "After my first goal some of my teammates were joking with me saying it was a scramble goal, so I told them okay, I'll give you a good goal," said Kwazema. "I got my second one and I told them 'I'll give you an even better one!' It was exciting all over the place, my teammates motivated me to get a better goal after each one."  

The first half of action was fairly quiet for both teams as they could not convert for thirty-minutes. At the 31:29 mark Berthoud setup Kwazema who broke the scoreless tie with his first of three goals in the match. 

The Eagles wasted no time adding to their lead in the second half. Henry Reeves connected with Aidan Hill just ten minutes after the break to give Biola the 2-0 advantage. Twenty-two seconds after Bethesda's Leonardo Rambelli received a yellow card (52:21), Kwazema punched his second goal of the night on an assist from fellow countryman Akhigbe "I-B" Unuigbe.

Biola dominated possession in tonight's match, limiting the flames to only one goal which came off a penalty kick following a Biola foul. Greenberg and his defense kept Bethesda quiet for the rest of the match. Just three-minutes after Bethesda's only score, Kwazema scored his third and final goal of the night at the 62:44 mark.

The Eagles were not done as Kwazema found Berthoud for his first career goal. Sophomore Ruben Newbauer scored the final goal of the night for Biola with just over ten minutes of action remaining in the contest. 

The last time BU scored 6 goals in a match was on August 29, 2015, versus Antelope Valley in a final score that mirrored tonights (6-1).  Stricklin and the Eagles look to match tonight's efforts as they close out the season and PacWest play in Irvine as they take on Concordia. Kickoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. Live stats and video can be found at cuieagles.com.
 
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