Being a team captain, Alex Sala knows how important it is to win conference games.So Sala, a senior midfielder, stepped up his game on Sept. 14 and 15, when the men’s soccer team faced two of its biggest matchups of the year against Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (KIAC) opponents Asbury University and Brescia University. He scored an early goal against Asbury. Then, late in double overtime, he made a play in front of the Asbury net that led to junior defender Frazer McKinlay’s game-winning goal as the Pioneers won, 2-1. “We got into that game and after 10 minutes [senior forward Matt Annecchiarico] played me a ball right in front of the goalie and I put it between his legs,” Sala said during a phone interview Wednesday night.  “We went into overtime and Frazer scored an amazing goal from the left side hitting it over the goalie.” The next day against Brescia, he scored the go-ahead goal that eventually gave Point Park the 3-2 win. “It was again Matty who played me another great ball,” Sala said about his goal against Brescia.  “He chipped the ball over the defense to send me right in front of the goalie, pretty much by myself on the left side, and I was able to put it in.”   With the wins against Asbury and Brescia, plus a win earlier this season against KIAC team Berea College, the Pioneers are now 3-0 in conference play.“We were happy with the weekend,” Sala said.  “We were on the bus for 20 hours in two days, and played 200 minutes, and got two key wins, and it looks like we are hosting the playoffs if we can get that last [conference] win.”Their final KIAC game of the regular season will be on Oct. 6 against Cincinnati Christian University.  It is also their lone KIAC home game of the regular season.While the Pioneers have done well in KIAC play, they did not win a non-conference game in their first four tries this season.Their most recent non-conference loss, 1-0 to Grove City College on Friday, sent the team to a sub .500 record of 3-4 overall.“I do think the teams that we’ve been playing have not been bad teams,” head coach Jeroen Walstra said Sunday at the Century United Complex.  “We made some really bad mistakes in other games so far and you get behind and then it gets difficult.”Sunday afternoon, the Pioneers managed to win their first non-conference game of the season against Daemen College.Point Park outshot Daemen 14-3 in the first half, but they could not get a ball into the net.  Eight of the Pioneers shots came off of the foot of senior forward Francis Tabi, who nearly scored in the first minute of the game but hit the left goalpost.  The game went into halftime with no score.   “I would have liked to put a couple of those away but that doesn’t change the fact that we still had to win the game,” Tabi said after the game Sunday.With 35 minutes 23 seconds remaining, junior forward Romida Nanko scored the first goal of the game, and the first goal the Pioneers scored at home this season.          Junior forward Ousman Jaiteh headed the ball into the goal to give Point Park a 2-0 lead.  The game ended with that same score. Both Nanko and Jaiteh are newcomers to the team this season.  They are two of 18 new additions to the team this season.“The new additions bring a lot of energy,” Tabi said.  “Ousman and Romida do bring a lot of speed forward so in case we tire off in the front we still have reinforcements coming in to get the job done.”Point Park is now 1-4 out of the conference, but holds a 4-4 record overall.Still, the KIAC games are what matters when it comes to playoff positioning.  While there will be a predetermined site for the KIAC playoffs, if the Pioneers finish with a better conference record they will be matched up to play against a weaker opponent in the tournament.  The site of the KIAC tournament has yet to be announced.After beating all three KIAC teams they have faced, Sala said that the team feels good about their chances of winning the conference championship in November.“This weekend, knowing that we were able to beat all the teams with the difficulty of having a bus ride for seven hours, and then playing right after that against the best opponent in the conference and still beat them at their field gives us hope and confidence that at home we will be ready to beat them and win the playoffs,” Sala said. With a KIAC championship, the Pioneers will have an automatic bid to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics tournament.  If the team makes it to nationals, it will be for the first time in the program’s history.