Sacramento, CA—The UC Riverside Men's Soccer Team's season came to an end Saturday afternoon, as the Highlanders battled Sacramento State, and a team-wide case of food poisoning, but fell to the Hornets in the First Round of the Big West Conference Tournament, 2-1.

UCR faced its first adversity of the afternoon before they even set foot on Sacramento State's campus, as 17 of the 22 players came down with food poisoning following the team's pregame meal. During his pregame talk, Coach Cupello conjured up visions of Michael Jordan's 38-point flu-game effort in the 1997 NBA Finals to inspire the troops though, and they played Sacramento State even for all 90 minutes.

The Hornets got on the scoreboard first in just the tenth minute when Nate Nugen and Ivan Ramirez found Alex Bettencourt for his seventh goal of the year.

The Highlanders tied it up with 13:12 to go in the first on Romario Lomeli's sixth score of the year. Ricardo Ruiz was credited with his fifth assist of the season on the play.

The match remained tied until the 77th minute when UC Riverside was called for an inadvertent handball in their defensive 18. Ramirez connected on the subsequent penalty kick for his fifth score of the year, putting Sac, State up, 2-1.

The Highlanders (9-10-1) pushed for the equalizer the rest of the way, but couldn't find the back of the net.

Sacramento State (9-8-2) advances to the conference semifinals to take on CSUN on Wednesday, November 9.