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Mountaineers stumble into playoffs |
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Monday, 05 March 2007 |
by ERIK RHYNE
Sports Reporter
In any sport, luck needs to be on your side.
For the Appalachian State University men’s soccer team, Lady Luck has been pulling for the opposition down the stretch.
“I feel like we have been unlucky a lot,” senior forward Sean Sassano said. “We feel like anytime now, when they say ‘when it rains it pours,’ we’re just going to have a flood of goals. It’s just unfortunate that we’re not getting it. It’s do or die now, it’s elimination time.”
Following Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the University of North Carolina at
Asheville, the Mountaineers have gone eight games without a win.
During the streak ASU has been outscored, 22-4 and shutout in five of those games.
“If you look at our results lately, we’ve had trouble scoring goals,
but we’ve created opportunities,” Sassano said. “That’s been our
problem, hitting our goals when we need them. That’s something we’ve
got to work on.”
Sunday’s game was a good demonstration of how the season has been for
ASU. The Mountaineers controlled the ball for most of the game, out
shot the Bulldogs 20-8 but still we unable to claim the victory.
“Unfortunately we’re definitely not getting over the hump,” head coach
Paul Stahlschmidt said. “We battle, battle and battle to get the first
goal of the game. Usually the team that scores first, wins. That wasn’t
the case today. We finally got the goal we needed but couldn’t do
enough to protect it.”
The scoreboard stayed quiet until late in the game. In the 60th minute
junior midfielder Juan Obergon scored for 18 yards out to give the
Mountaineers the lead.
However, seven minutes later Bulldog junior Scott Szymanski tied the game on a free kick.
UNCA defenseman John Hillman, scored the second of two unanswered goals
in the 85th minute to give the Bulldogs the lead and eventual win.
Not only did the loss send the Mountaineers into the playoffs on the
wrong foot, but it also sent six seniors off into the sunset on a sour
note.
Seniors, Tim Bender, McCoy Livingston, Cory Lugger, Sassano, Michael
Walters and Greg Walters played their last games for the black and gold
at home.
“It’s a disappointment to go out with a loss,” Sassano said. “But, I’ve
had a great four years here. It’s great tradition and great atmosphere
to play soccer in. I don’t think it’s hit me that this was my last game
here. It’s been a great four years, and it’s not over yet.”
With the winless streak continuing as the regular season winded down,
Stachschimdt said the streak has plagued the team mentally, but going
back to the basics can help right the ship.
Now the Mountaineers have to regroup and do something they have not
done lately, win. Sassano said it is not the best situation to be in
heading into the tournament.
“It’s not what you’re looking forward to go into the tournament with,”
he said. “We’ve produced a lot of good things this year, but we’ve been
unlucky this season as well. We can sit down and look at the losses to
take positives from it going into the tournament. That’s what we’ve got
to do.”
As Appalachian heads into its first round game of the Southern
Conference Tournament against the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro on Nov. 10, to find its winning ways ASU will look to a
group of players who have been the leaders all along.
“I think we need to have these six seniors that we honored today need
to step up and lead the team,” Stahlschmidt said. “They’ve been in a
lot of games and a lot of adverse situations. I think we’ll be relying
on them to step it up for the knockout phase of the tournament.”
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