Athletics

Men’s Soccer Advances in NCAA Tourney with 3-2 Win Over Colorado

The Gustavus men’s soccer team took down Colorado College 3-2 Saturday evening to advance in the NCAA Tournament. The Gusties, now 18-3 overall, will take on North Park (Ill.) at 3 p.m. Sunday after the Vikings defeated Pacific Lutheran 6-1 prior to the Gustavus game.

—

by

wfroehling

BOX SCORE

CHICAGO, Ill. – The Gustavus men’s soccer team took down Colorado College 3-2 Saturday evening to advance in the NCAA Tournament. The Gusties, now 18-3 overall, will take on North Park (Ill.) at 3 p.m. Sunday after the Vikings defeated Pacific Lutheran 6-1 prior to the Gustavus game.

“I thought the guys did a great job of again executing a game plan,” said Head Coach Tudor Flintham. “C.C. is a great team who are especially physically imposing, so we knew we’d have to be tactically clean and need to provide a bit more help in our 1v1 battles. We also knew we’d have to be clinical and score goals, because they would create chances, and while we definitely didn’t score the best chances we created, any time you can score three goals in an NCAA game is a pretty cool thing and means we did something right.”

Things played even for the the first 30 minutes of the contest before the Gusties saw a lapse in the defense and took advantage. Matt Gibbons (Jr., Minneapolis) played a nice ball down the middle of the field for Cole Schwartz (So., Jakarta, Indonesia). Schwartz, just outside the box, sniped a shot off the inside of the left post for the goal to put the Gusties up 1-0 with just over 14 minutes left in the half.

The Black and Gold kept the momentum going five minutes later as Scott Heinen corralled a misplayed ball from the Tigers at the front left side of the box and pitched one up and over the goalkeeper to the top right corner to put the Gusties up 2-0. It appeared that the score would remain 2-0 at the half, but Colorado had a free kick with under 30 seconds to go in the first and headed one past Wesley Sanders (Fy., Urbandale, Iowa) to cut the Gustie lead to 2-1 going into the break.

In the second half, the Gusties picked up the momentum in the 57th minute as Gibbons lofted a perfect corner kick to the far post and Cody Billins (Sr., Farmington) met it with his head and knocked it past the Tiger keeper for the goal and a 3-1 advantage.

Colorado didn’t give up though, as it put the pressure on late, taking a handful of shots and corner kicks, eventually getting a goal on a low line drive cross that was punched past Sanders to bring the Gustavus lead to 3-2 with 4:45 remaining.

“Now recovery is important with the quick turn around and especially when you’re playing the 2017 national runner-up,” said Flintham. “But we’ll be ready again and the guys understand what it’ll take to advance to Michigan next week”

The Gusties would fend off a handful of Colorado scoring opportunities late to secure the victory. Colorado won the shot count 11-8, but Sanders was able to make the stops that counted most with three saves.