Irvine, CA — The Knights traveled to Irvine High School to take on the Vaqueros in their home stadium. Foothill was looking to bounce back after two recent unlucky losses to crosstown rivals Beckman HS (0-1) and Tustin HS (2-3). Junior Kevin Miyashiro was between the posts for the injured senior Tommy Gunther. Gunther dislocated his thumb in the loss to Tustin when the Tiller player stomped on his hand during his taunting celebration after converting a penalty kick. Miyashiro played well and defended the goal fiercely. The back line forced much of the play away from danger and helped to mitigate the risk. Junior Dylan Hicks was given a red card in the 25th minute on a very harsh judgement. A ball was played through to an Irvine player and, upon feeling the defenders catch up to him about 45 yards out, he stepped in the path of Hicks' recovering run to draw the foul. Two other defenders were near and all were closing the space. The foul was not violent conduct and was difficult to understand why the referee judged it as an "obvious" goal scoring opportunity. The Knights battled on and continued to have the lion's share of the possession and create more of the dangerous chances. Junior Tyler Valdez received a pass from Senior Joey Benitez at the top of the box and he buried it in the upper left hand corner to put Foothill ahead just before the half. The second half again saw the Knights control the game with more possession and goal scoring chances. Unfortunately, in the last 5 minutes, Foothill conceded multiple corners and gave away free kicks around the outside of the box that gave Irvine more chances and opportunities than they had seen all game. In the 77th minute, Foothill conceded 2 back to back corners. The first was dealt with but not cleared entirely, which forced senior Wyatt Shultz to concede the second corner as he dealt with an Irvine runner that had beat his man and was alone inside the box. The ball was cleared away for the second corner but on the ensuing kick, there was a collision in the box as Miyashiro attempted to clear the ball off the 6 yard line. The Irvine player ran through Miyashiro, knocking him temporarily unconscious, and unfortunately, the play was not stopped soon enough and Irvine scored. It is apparently much easier to score goals when your keeper is unconscious. The game was stopped for 10-15 minutes to attend to Miyashiro who was clearly concussed and needed to be taken to urgent care. He will be evaluated and will hopefully be able to return to the field soon. The game resumed with 3-4 minutes left to play with Senior Max Hahn putting on his goalie gloves and keeping Irvine from scoring anymore. And just as the last segment of the game started after Miyashiro was injured, it finished unceremoniously in a tie. This felt like another loss even though the Knights played most of the game with only 10 men. Foothill is struggling to finish out games and this is resulting in many sleepless nights for the coaching staff.