Three weekends ago, my heart was broken. The best run my college soccer team, Medaille College Mavericks, have ever made came to an end. We, and yes I am going to refer to the team as though I am a part of it (I still have a vested interest in the team, and I was an integral part of where the program is...I graduated in 2008), made it to the sweet 16 of the Division III National Soccer Tournament. Now, let me go back and take you through the path we ran. The season started like every other season since 2004, we were underestimated by the entire country and most importantly, our conference. Well fuck you coaches. We stumbled along the way, losing to Franciscan, which I still do not understand how that happened, and Behrend....Buck Fehrend....beat us with 4 seconds left in regulation...but that did not deter us. We went into our conference tournament as the 2 seed, a tournament we hosted as the #1 seed from 2005 - 2009, and we handled our business against Altoona in the semis 3-0. Then we had to go play Behrend again. And once again it was a tight affair. We went through regulation and two overtimes without a goal. Never in my life have I played a game that at least one goal wasn't scored, so it was crazy to watch. And we go to PK's. Now I hate PK's....Nuck Faz....but that is another story, that maybe I'll go into another time...but they are much less fun from the side of the fan, when you have no control. But Jimmy Friscati came off the bench and into net and made 3 amazing saves, and we won the conference championship 4-3 in 7 rounds of PK's! Again, I repeat...Fuck you coaches! but I'm not bitter at all...
Continuing on,
Round 1: Medaille vs. University of Rochester - The next weekend we play in the first and second rounds of the national tournament. We have to travel to Swarthmore, who by the way, don't know how to spell or pronounce their own school name, but I will get into that. We play Saturday, November 20th against University of Rochester...at Swarthmore University, just outside of Philadelphia...yes we traveled 5 hours to play against a team that is 1 hour down the road... And they are a tough team. But we controlled the majority of play. We out shot and outplayed them for the first half. And we scored 9 minutes into the game. Hip-Hip Jorge!(his name is George, but Jorge, pronounced the Spanish way, fit the chant). However, as the first half wore on, they started to creep back into the game, and the second half was more us playing defense and them pressing. We still out shot them overall, but it was much closer than any game we had played all season. And Nick Kurtz played out of his mind, making many saves from point blank range, especially in the final 5 minutes. It was an intense game, and we won 1-0.
Side point...We went into Philadelphia, and Keith (not that I expect that you will ever read this), I am still mad (not really) that you were not at work like you said you'd be...but o well, sorry we missed you again.
Round 2: Medaille vs. Swarthmore University - Let's start this by saying, that Swarthmore was ranked #9 in the country on NSCAA.com coaches rankings, and #7 on the d3soccer.com top 25 before this game was played. And they played like they should be ranked that high. I have never seen Medaille manhandled the way they were that game. At least, not since we played those stupid Sluzers in the first round in 05...Sure we had our opportunities against Swarthmore, but they were few and far between, and never really dangerous. In the end shots on goal were 10-6, but shots were 20-9 or so. Also, Nick Kurtz again was huge for us. He basically was the only reason we were still in the game at the end. Swarthmore had many chances, and multiple times the ball trailed right along the line and just missed going in. It was so nerve racking, I do not think I have ever been more nervous in my life, while watching a soccer game. Their fans were absurd. And this is where I go on a little rant...
Learn how to heckle...seriously...anything you need to say, if you are heckling, should be done in less than 15 words. With heckling, the less the better...cmon now...One of their fans tried to insult our team...but his heckle was, "Yea, you have to warm up your bench players, and make subs them in because your starters are not good enough to play against us." And no one on our team had any idea what he was saying by the time he finished because let's be honest, no one was listening after the word because. 15 words, done. He did have a good come back when our coaches responded to tell him to settle down...he said "sorry, the last thing I want to do is make your team play bad." I did think that was funny. But seriously Swarthmore, learn to heckle if you are going to do it. Enough said on that.
Next, Learn how to spell...especially the name of your own university and mascot. Your school name is Swarthmore in case you forgot, and your mascot, which I apologize for, is the Garnet...so you are a color...good for you. They had signs and chants saying Lets Go Swat. I'm pretty sure you forgot an R...you can't be Swat when you are Swarth...jeez...I mean seriously. And when you spell out words on your chest, yes they even had those fans there...make sure they are in the right order. I could not tell what you were trying to spell, either Swarth, or Garnet, I never saw all the letters, but you guys had the letter A as the second to last letter....lets check...Swar
th...nope....Garn
et....nope...cmon now, learn to spell. You are in a good academic college. K done. Now back to the game.
They had this one player, a forward, who was probably one of the best players we've ever played against. He was all over our outside backs, and made them look awful all game. He was way better than our outside backs. And he knew it too. Anytime he wanted to, he got around them and behind them. And he knew he could, and that actually worked out in our favor. Because our center back, Corey Phillips, was all over him on the coverage. The guy could not get past Corey. And that frustrated him, and 15 minutes into the game he was absolutely yelling at his coaches and fighting with them. The one thing we had going for us, is we played as a team whereas Swarthmore got very frustrated that they were not already ahead, and started fighting amongst themselves. Thank you Swarthmore. However, like I said, Kurtz saved us, again...and here we go, 0-0 through regulation, and overtime was much of the same, dominated by Swarthmore. But 0-0 through two overtimes, welcome back to PK's. Twice in 3 games, 8 days apart, PK's. Enter Jimmy Friscati one more time. And Swarthmore fans heckled him, calling him Double Stuffed, which is a pretty good heckle, short, succinct, right to the point. He is a bigger kid. Good for them, and short and sweet, so I can't complain about that one. But this time no sudden death rounds. Only 5 rounds. We shoot first. They save our first one. They score...we are down 0-1...We make our next one, so do they...1-2...Round 3 We score, Jimmy makes a huge save, 2-2. Round 4 they save our shot...but Jimmy makes another huge save, 2-2 still. Intense moments, one of our senior captains steps up, round 5, slots it home, amazing shot, and we are up 3-2 with their shooter left. There is a backdrop behind the goal, a net to stop balls, its black and anytime the ball hits the goal it moves because it is right on top of the goal. Their shooter shoots to his left, Jimmy dives the right way, and the ball hits netting, it takes the stands a half a second to realize it was just the black netting, he missed just left, and we won! We are in the Sweet 16! What a freaking game and outcome. We did not deserve to win, they were way better than we were, they almost score multiple times, but it was just our time to move on beyond the 2nd round. Yea Medaille! The first AMCC team to advance to the Sweet 16 in the history of the conference.
Now to the heart breaker...
Round 3: Medaille College vs. Messiah College - Let's preface this with this with a couple of facts. Messiah is the 2 time defending national champions and have won 7 of the last 10 at the point when this game was played. Also, 2 years ago, the first year after I graduated, we played Messiah in the 1st round of the national tournament, and until the 83rd minute were winning 1-0, we ended up losing 2-1 in overtime, and they went on to win the national championship. Also, Messiah was ranked #3 on the NSCAA coaches poll, and #1 on the d3soccer.com top 25. Now onto this year. Host school, Muhlenberg College, in Allentown, PA, who played Merchant Marine, and whoever won the game between Messiah and Medaille had the easiest elite 8 game in the tournament. Neither one of those teams posed as a threat to either of us. Sadly, Messiah was another story. This team was just that good. After watching the first 10 minutes of the game, it was clear that we were in trouble. Sure we pressured them a little and made our attempts, but there was just no way we could play defense for an entire 90 minutes and hope to come out on top, it was only a matter of time until they....oops they scored...23 minutes into the first half, we finally broke down. Now, it was a cheesy goal. They had 4 corners in a row because we had trouble clearing it, and it kept going over our own end line. But on the 4th one, we had trouble clearing again, and the ball was bouncing around and one of their players bumbled into it, slid and put it near post, and Nick Kurtz, who had a hell of a game considering what he was facing, got a piece of it too. But it was in the goal, and we were down 1-0. We played out the rest of the second half never truly posing a threat to their defense. Sure George got some pressure in there and Alex Rouse had a couple half chances, but nothing to overly threaten their goalkeeper. Second half is much of the same, and about 20 minutes into the 2nd half, they score again, this time the ball was played across our goal to about 12 yards out, and their player just blasted it past Nick, nothing he could do about it. 2-0 Messiah. They out possessed us the entire game probably close to 75% of the time they held the ball. It was not good for us. We had a hard time, but had a couple chances late as we pushed everything up. But after 429 minutes of playoff soccer without letting up a goal, Messiah broke us down and succeeded, twice. We lost 2-0, and Messiah went on to beat Merchant Marine 3-0 the next day, then win 4-1 in the final 4, and win 2-1 in overtime this past weekend in the finals and finish their 3-peat, and take 8 of the last 11 championships.
Current Mood - Frustrated, wired...just want to work out and stop thinking about things.
Current Listenings - ESPN Radio - love my sports talk while I am at work.
P.S. Buck Fehrend!!!
