Aug. 31, 2012
Contact: Jeff Sattora
ROCHESTER, Mich.- The Cleveland State men's soccer team fell 1-0 in a tough overtime battle against Oakland University Friday night on the road.
The two teams fought to a scoreless first 90 minutes of play before the Grizzlies scored off a penalty kick on a call in the extra session that seemed like it could have gone either way.
For Vikings' Head Coach Ali Kazemaini, while a loss is never a good thing, he did see some positives.
"It's a loss for us," Kazemaini said. "I mean we played well in the first half and had a few chances that we should have put away and didn't do it."
The Vikings were able to get six shots off in the first half, and 10 in total, but were unable to put any in the back of the net.
"We played pretty well, the performance wasn't that bad really, we played well in spurts but the second half we just fell off a little bit," Kazemaini added.
As the game wore on it turned into a choppy foul-fest as the two teams were called for a combined 29 fouls, including 20 on CSU alone.
For Kazemaini, the Vikings have to make sure they don't let the whistle and physical play affect them, no matter how it is being called.
"We still need to try to stick to our game, when we try to play physical it gets us out of our rhythm," Kazemaini said. "We like to move the ball around and we weren't able to do it."
The referee's whistle is where the game seemed to turn late, with two calls against CSU that turned into penalty kicks for the Grizzlies.
While the Vikings were able to fight off one penalty kick by Oakland in the 50th minute, an overtime call leading to a penalty kick (and goal) in the 91st minute put the game away for good.
CSU will be looking to bounce back from the difficult setback as they take on Big Ten opponent Michigan on the road Sunday at 4:00 p.m.
