Final Stats

Contact: Jeff Sattora

Green Bay, WI- The Cleveland State Vikings' men's soccer team ended the regular season Saturday afternoon playing to a 1-1 draw against the Green Bay Phoenix on the road.

The tie wraps up a regular season for CSU that saw them finish 9-5-3 on the year, and alone in second place in the Horizon League standings. Heading into the final weekend of conference play the Vikings had a chance to still host the league tournament next weekend, but those hopes were taken away when Detroit came away with a win Friday night locking up the number one overall seed. The Detroit win also locked up the second seed for the Vikings.

"It was kind of tough for the players to get going (today) because last night we were so tuned into that result (Detroit win)," Head Coach Ali Kazemaini said on the game. "But we went down and played well enough, I'm glad we came back and tied it up."

CSU first fell down 1-0 in the 36th minute on a Green Bay goal before working hard to fight back for the tie.

The game stayed 1-0 until the 68th minute when Zach Ellis-Hayden put in his fourth goal of the year off a feed from Admir Suljevicto tie the game at one all. Suljevic found Ellis-Hayden in the box for a goal on the right side of the net, with the goalie diving left.

For Kazemaini, although coming away with the tie was a great bonus, he is still looking big picture with the league tournament next weekend.

"I think we played really well in the second half and overtime we were unlucky to win it," Kazemaini said. "Obviously you want to win every game but the way the game was it didn't mean anything for either team (in the standings)." 

"It's one of those where you just play it and hope nobody gets hurt and you can get out of there," he added.

The Vikings will start their run towards the league tournament title next weekend when they play in the semi-finals at Detroit at a time and against an opponent to be determined.