Men’s soccer season ends with 3–2 overtime loss
The Carnegie Mellon men’s soccer team saw its season come to an end in an unfortunate fashion in the quarterfinals of the ECAC South Tournament. The Tartans hosted Frostburg State University Wednesday and lost 3–2 in overtime, as the Bobcats needed only 11 seconds of overtime to score the game-winning goal.
A quiet first half saw the Tartans strike first in the 13th minute. Sophomore forward Ricky Griffin crossed the ball from the left side toward the front of the goal and a Frostburg defender slid and kicked the ball into his own net to put Carnegie Mellon up 1–0.
“The first goal was a little lucky because they kicked it into their own net,” Griffin said. “However, we had a couple guys in the box ready to put it in if he didn’t.”
The score remained 1–0 heading into halftime with the Tartans holding a 7–2 edge in shots. Frostburg mounted a furious comeback, netting two goals within 80 seconds of each other to tie, and then take the lead.
Frostburg sophomore Steven Jacobsen leapt and headed in a cross from junior Adam Gracia at the 66:24 mark that went over the head of Carnegie Mellon junior goalkeeper Matthew Bazin. The Bobcats took the lead at the 67:44 mark when senior Kenny Dotter blasted a shot from the right sideline that somehow managed to go between the right post and Bazin and into the back corner of the net.
“We really needed to get [a] second goal when we were up 1–0,” Griffin said. “We had a lot of good chances, especially at the beginning of the second half. It would’ve been a different game if we had just gotten that second goal, but the longer it took the longer they were still in the game. We just had two little lapses and then we were behind.”
Griffin’s scrappy play provided the equalizer in the 77th minute. First-year midfielder Adam Bogus headed a cross toward the net only to have Griffin’s foot flick the ball past Bobcat junior goalkeeper Jay Herford. The goal gave Griffin a team-leading 12 goals on the season.
“The second goal came at the end of a good play,” Griffin said. “We were moving the ball around and got a nice cross over that Bogus got up and won. I was just trying to get forward in case the ball got free. The ball dropped right in front of me and I was able to kick it in right before the goalie could get it. Our team is definitely good at responding when we go down. We were creating chances all game — and especially when we went down 2–1, we picked it up until we got that second goal. Everyone on our team was confident we could come back, so I think that was a big part of it.”
Despite having a 19–9 edge in shots for the game, Carnegie Mellon wasn’t able to punch in a go-ahead goal late in regulation. Frostburg took the kickoff to start the overtime and the tandem of Dotter and junior Gregg Laskow combined for the game-winner.
Dotter’s through ball to Laskow beat the defense, and with only Bazin to beat, Laskow booted a shot that found its way into the back of the net to end the game a mere 11 seconds into overtime.
“Going into overtime, we still felt confident because we were creating chances and then they scored so quickly ... we didn’t know what hit us,” Griffin said.
The men’s soccer team completes their 2007 season with a record of 9–6–2.