EMBRACING PRESSURE

UC Riverside senior keeper Gonzalez knows every opportunity is earned

Carlos Gonzalez is choosing to embrace the pressure of his final season with the UC Riverside men’s soccer team.

Through the brutal nationally ranked non-conference schedule, the cross-town rivalry against California Baptist University, the grueling Big West Conference away fixtures, the difficult conversations and the uncertainty of a future in the professional game, the Highlanders senior is making a conscious decision to love all of it.

“It’s something you have to embrace. Embrace and love it,” said Gonzalez, last season’s co-big West goalkeeper of the year. “You’re only guaranteed today (and) the best time is spent between the sticks diving around so go have some fun.”

As the hours tick on Gonzalez’s recordbreaking collegiate career at UCR — the Highlanders have only five matches remaining before the conference tournament — the redshirt senior is completely committed to pouring as much of himself into the program as his time remaining allows.

Gonzalez, who prepped at Santa Ana Mater Dei High, is quick to mention the program’s motto — “Earned not given” — as the Highlanders’ spiritual backbone.

“Every year has been a new year and a new competition for me,” he said. “I’ve never returned as the starting goalkeeper, even this year. It’s always been earned. Every day we live that way and it’s the people around me that push me to be better than I was yesterday.”

Last season, Gonzalez helped lead UC Riverside as it claimed the Big West “double”, winning both the regular season and the conference tournament titles for the first time in the same year.

This season, the Highlanders (1-8-3 overall) struggled against one of the nation’s

ANJALI SHARIF-PAUL — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER UC Riverside’s Carlos Gonzalez, last year’s co-big West goalkeeper of the year, loves the Highlanders’ rivalry with city foe Cal Baptist.