Photo by Rob Varela

The Fusion's Jaime Ambriz, right, and San Fernando Quakes' Matthew Tracy tangle as they go for the ball during Saturday night's game at Buena High.

It was worth the wait.

The Ventura County Fusion men's team followed 268 minutes of scoreless soccer with two of the best goals in the club's short history Saturday night at Buena High.

Hagop Chirishian and Jason Leopoldo scored scorching goals from distance in the final five minutes as the Fusion rescued a point, 2-2, against the rival San Fernando Valley Quakes.

Neither had scored for the Fusion in 13 previous appearances for the club.

"That's got to be the best game you'll ever see," said Fusion coach Graham Smith.

The Fusion (0-0-2), which visits the San Jose Frogs next Saturday, remains winless in four home matches dating back its 1-0 win over San Francisco Seals on July 8, 2007.

Smith's spirits were lifted by the team's turnaround.

"I thought Here we go again,' " said Smith. "But we're playing teams off the park. This team is much better than last year's team."

Things looked otherwise when Chirishian, who did not score a goal in nine matches last season, got off the mark by blasting a 35-yard screamer that whistled past Quakes goalkeeper Kevin Guppy with five minutes to play.

After missing all by three games last year with a foot injury, Leopoldo made his return Saturday as a substitute.

The Thousand Oaks High graduate earned a foul 30 yards from goal deep into second-half stoppage time, then made sure teammate Greg Folk didn't give away his free kick.

"I yelled to Greg Gimmie the ball,' " said Leopoldo. "I was feeling it on my corner kicks and it was the same ball."

Leopoldo spun the free kick over the wall and under Guppy's crossbar to knot the game at 2-2 with nearly the last kick of the game.

It was Leopoldo's first goal since a header for UCLA at Oregon State eight months ago.

"That felt like a win," said Fusion general manager Ranbir Shergill.

The Fusion looked like doing it the easy way during a strong first half.

The pendulum swung in first-half stoppage time, when Rodrigo Lopez, who had been perhaps the Fusion's best player over the first 135 minutes of the season, was taken down in the penalty area without a whistle.

"Obvious penalty," said Smith.

Instead of earning a penalty kick, the Fusion was just plain penalized when Lopez immediately responded with a two-footed tackle on Quakes fullback Sung Kim.

The straight red card reduced the Fusion to 10 players just seven minutes after Lopez had created the scoring chance of the half by slaloming past two defenders before his 20-foot bid was deflected agonizingly wide.

San Fernando Valley capitalized on their advantage within three minutes of the second half, when Kim drove a 30-yard screamer into the upper right-hand corner of Logan Frank's goal.

The Quakes' numerical advantage was wiped out with a 30 minutes to play, when Taylor Canel was shown a second yellow card for a mistimed tackle in midfield.

The Quakes seemed to put the match out of reach in the 75th minute, when Chad Borak cut inside to smash a rising shot that Frank did well to stop. But the rebound bounced to the Quakes' Danny Ortiz, who pushed the visitors' lead to 2-0.

The Fusion hadn't scored since Ricardo Alcaraz's late goal in its 3-3 draw with the Southern California Seahorses on July 15 of last season.

Until Chirishian and Leopoldo gave the home fans the sights for which they were waiting.