The positive was that the Irvine Valley men’s soccer team battle back from two goals down to tie Golden West, 2-2, in an Orange Empire Conference match Friday afternoon at home.

But the negative is that the tie doesn’t do much for the Lasers.

Irvine Valley needed a win to bolster its chances for the Southern California Regional Playoffs. Cypress was 1-8-1 in conference going into the match and was coming off a 6-0 loss to Orange Coast on Tuesday.

Instead, the Lasers saw their record slip to 8-8-3 overall and 6-5-1 in conference and remained in fourth place in the standings.

The Lasers have two matches left in the regular season next week and they need wins. IVC plays at Santa Ana next Tuesday and then hosts Riverside next Friday.

"The kids worked hard," IVC coach Martin McGrogan said about the effort on Friday. "I don’t question their work ethic, but that (result) is the way it is been all year for us. It is just frustrating."

Irvine Valley fell behind early, giving up two goals in the opening minutes of the match. One came on a shot near 40 yards out by Marvin Carvajal. Shortly after Carvajal took advantage of an IVC mistake in the back when defenders couldn’t clear a cross and he scored.

"Those are the type of bad goals we have given up all year," McGrogan said.

IVC battled back with a goal toward the end of the first half. Freshman forward Allen Villa sent a cross into the box from the right side. Freshman forward Anthony Muniz controlled the ball and then sent a shot into the lower left corner of the net.

It was all IVC in the second half. The Rustlers packed in their defense and tried to hold on. But in the 65th minute, Villa was credited with a goal after freshman defender Ole Andrade fired a cross in front of the net.

Freshman midfielder Ghilherme Oliveira, sophomore midfielder Roberto Linck, Villa and freshman midfielder Alex Gaede all had chances to score in the second half, but couldn’t connect.

IVC sophomore goalie Mikhail Radchuk had to make just one save in the match.