MONMOUTH, Ore--In a back-and-forth thriller on a beautiful Saturday morning at the WOU Soccer Field, Western Oregon had the last word during a 3-2 triumph over Western Washington. 

Archie Dhima beat his defender, drew the Viking goalkeeper out of the goal and knocked home the game winner with less than a minute left (89:05) to send the Wolves to their first Great Northwest Athletic Conference victory of the season. WOU is now 1-0-1 in GNAC play and 4-2-4 overall, while the Vikings dropped to 1-1 in the conference and 6-3-1 on the season.

Dhima had two scores for the Wolves and goalkeeper Austin Valdez had a heroic 14 saves to lead the charge against WWU, who received votes in last week's USC national poll.

"This was a great win from the team, their first GNAC win of the year and what a way to do it," said Wolves head coach Andrew May. "Marcus (Vazquez) set us up for success after the first goal and continued to cause problems for WWU. Our backline and Valdez did a tremendous job keeping us in the game. That's our mentality. Nothing changes and we always have a belief we can win the game."

It was a match controlled by Western Washington on paper, as they outshot the Wolves 26-13 including 16-5 on goal. The Vikings also had eight corner kicks to WOU's two. But the Wolves won on the scoreboard in the tight match-up between two squads picked to finish second and third respectively in the GNAC preseason poll. 

Vazquez got the home team on the board first just a little over eight minutes into the match. The junior midfielder fired a shot into the lower left corner of the goal to make it 1-0 before most folks had found their seats.

Western Washington answered in the 39th minute on Landon Schulze's score to make it 1-1, and that would be the score at the halftime break. The Vikings had a 10-6 shot advantage after the first 45 minutes, including 5-2 on goal.

But it didn't take long for the Wolves to regain the lead. Just five minutes after intermission, Dhima converted a penalty kick to make it 2-1. 

What followed was a flurry of offense on both sides. The Vikings were relentless on the attack, but the Wolves defense and Valdez were there to block each attempt. The Vikings had a half dozen shots in the final 20 minutes of play. 

And then, with just over four minutes left, Schulze found himself in a 1-on-1 breakaway and he popped the shot in past Valdez to knot the score at 2-2, seemingly sending the match into a final deadlock. The Vikings followed minutes later with another great opportunity, a couple in fact, but Valdez punched two balls out to keep the match tied.

Dhima then had the final say. The Wolves leading scorer beat his defender, drew the Viking keeper out and directed a shot into the lower right goal to stun the crowd and send his team into celebration. It was Dhima's tenth goal of the season and certainly his most important score of the 2026 campaign.

Vazquez scored his third goal of the year and Valdez finished with 14 saves, a career high for him by a lot (six was his previous best). That total is also the top mark in the GNAC this year. Nine of his saves came in the second half. 

The Wolves will next head to Lacey, Wash. for a Thursday (Oct. 1) match against St. Martin's.