The Irvine Valley men's soccer team gave up two goals in the opening three minutes and 40 seconds and could never recover against Santa Ana Friday afternoon in an important Orange Empire Conference match at Irvine Valley.

Santa Ana pulled out a 3-1 win to remain at least tied for first in the conference standings. The Dons entered Friday’s action in a tie for first place with Santiago Canyon. Irvine Valley was tied for second place, two points back.

Santa Ana, which defeated Santiago Canyon, 2-0, on Tuesday, improved its record to 5-4-3 overall and 3-0-2 in conference. IVC slipped to 7-4-2 overall and 2-2-2 in conference.

Santa Ana took advantage of an IVC mistake defensively in the opening minute to take the early lead.

Ramon Quintana sent the ball ahead to Alex Moreno near the top of the IVC penalty area. IVC goalie Mikhai Radchuk came out too far on the play and got caught. Moreno pushed the ball to the right of Radchuk and then found the open goal.

Not quite three minutes later, Santa Ana was at it again. This time Miguel Cucue sent a through pass to Juan Carlos Agripino, who raced past the IVC defense and then beat Radchuk with a shot. With 41:20 left in the first half, Santa Ana led, 2-0.

IVC pushed into the Santa Ana box on numerous occasions in the first half, but couldn’t create any great chances.

Santa Ana’s Cucue nearly scored late in the half on a shot that went right of the goal.

IVC made it a 2-1 game about 10 minutes into the second half. Defender Caleb Hamilton’s long throw in was flicked to the back post by forward Corey Cordray. Midfielder Taylor Campbell was there to knock the ball into the back of the net.

The goal gave IVC new life. But it didn’t last for long. Santa Ana answered about five minutes later with another goal by Agripino.

And that is the way it ended. The match also featured eight yellow cards.

“We just made too many mistakes and against a team as good as this you can’t do that,” IVC Coach Martin McGrogan said. “It is really a shame because we had been doing quite well (coming into the match). We were poor today.”

The two goals were Agripino’s team-leading seventh and eight of the season. Moreno recorded his fourth goal of the year for IVC.

The goal for IVC’s Campbell was his first of the season.

IVC is at Cypress for another conference game next Tuesday at 3 p.m.