Riverside—The UC Riverside Men's Soccer Team's goal of a Big West Conference Tournament Championship came up short Wednesday evening, as they played a man down for nearly the entire match, and fell to visiting Cal State Fullerton, 3-0.

The Titans' Amara Soumah was driving into the Highlanders' 18 with less than five minutes gone in the first when Stephen Copely took him down earning a red card in the process. The official call was that Copely had "denied an obvious goal scoring opportunity," soccer's equivalent of a breakaway penalty, which brings with it an automatic ejection.

Ian Ramos scored on the subsequent penalty kick for his fourth goal of the season, to put the Titans up 1-0.

Cal State Fullerton (10-7-5) made it a 2-0 match in the 13th minute when Colin Okirie found Ramos streaking down the right side of the field. Okirie tapped the ball to Marc Fenelus just inside the UCR (5-10-4) box, and Fenelus beat Highlanders keeper K.C. John to the left side of the goal.

Despite playing a man down, the Highlanders more than held their own throughout the rest of the first half outshooting Fullerton 9-3 in the period. Unfortunately, none of UC Riverside's shots found their way through the Titans defenses.

Cal State Fullerton began to wear down the Highlanders late in the second half, and despite Ashkan Khosravi's four saves, and a pair of team saves by the Highlanders defense, the Titans tacked on a third score in the 76th minute off the foot of Diego Sanchez.

With the win, Cal State Fullerton advances to the conference finals Saturday, and they will travel to UC Irvine to take on the Anteaters. UCI upended UC Santa Barbara, 3-2, in the other semifinal match Wednesday.

Although the loss put a damper on the evening, 891 Highlanders faithful were on hand to cheer on one of the most successful UC Riverside Men's Soccer Teams ever. This year's version of the Highlanders went 4-3-3 in conference, tying the program mark for best Big West single-season record originally set by the 2011 squad.

UCR picked up two wins over ranked opponents on the year, and defender Otis Earle set the school's career assist mark.