In a championship game battle between the Pacific West Conference's best defensive unit vs. the league's best offensive unit, it was the offense that prevailed as Dixie State came up on the short end of a 3-0 result at Fresno Pacific Saturday night in Fresno, Calif.

Dixie State, which entered the match as the lone unbeaten team in PacWest play, saw its 14-match unbeaten streak halted as the Storm finish the 2015 season at 10-2-4, 8-1-4 and in second place in the conference standings. Meanwhile, the Sunbirds (14-2-2/11-1-1 PWC) claimed their second PacWest title in three seasons and will wait to see if they make the NCAA West Regional field, which will be announced this Monday.

FPU scored all three goals in the first 26 minutes of the match, including a pair of book-end goals from Benjamin Cowdrill, who also assisted on the second Sunbird tally of the match.

The early deficit was too much to overcome for DSU, which was held to just 10 shots – three on goal, with two of the shots on frame coming off the boot of sophomore Frankie Mallek (Yuma, Ariz./Kofa HS), while senior Santiago Alejandro (Oakley, Calif./Alhambra HS) registered the other shot on goal in his final collegiate start. Junior goalkeeper Bradley Trella (Chandler, Ariz./Chandler HS) suffered just his second loss in goal all season, but finished with seven saves in a losing effort.

"It was a tough game. Fresno Pacific is a great team and can score in bunches," DSU Head Coach Josh Pittman said. "I thought we made a couple mistakes that we couldn't recover from and when we had our chances we could not capitalize."

Despite the loss, Dixie State enjoyed its most successful season in the program's brief eight-year history. The Storm won a program-record 10 matches, an eight-win turnaround from the 2014 campaign, including eight victories by shutout. DSU's defense was ranked at or near the top of several NCAA defensive statistical categories for much of the year, and recorded a school-record 796-plus minute shutout streak midway through the year.

"It was a tough way to end [the season], but I'm extremely proud of how we played all year and hopefully this is motivation for us going forward," Coach Pittman said.