Oct. 14, 2009
Contact: Renee Adam
Fort Wayne, Ind. - After a scoreless first half, the Cleveland State men's soccer team fell at IPFW, 2-1 with Josh Williams recording the lone goal for the Vikings in the 85th minute.
It was a defensive tussle during the first half of action, with neither team being able to find the back of the net, despite having a combined 16 shots, four on goal.
"We gave up silly goals during the second half tonight off of transition plays," said head coach Ali Kazemaini. "We were a bit too casual coming back on the field after halftime and that has been our problem on the road this year, we just aren't ready for the first ten minutes of each half, but are fine the rest of the game. This makes it frustrating to not come away with results that we would like to see."
IPFW scored their first goal just three minutes into the second half, when Colin Helmrich got a shot off from 12 yards out giving the Mastodons a 1-0 lead. Helmrich's shot beat goalkeeper Brad Stuver to the back of the net off an unassisted play.
Eighteen minutes later Max Touloute scored on a one-on-two play, beating both defenders to the goal recording the second unassisted goal of the night, with IPFW taking a 2-0 lead.
Williams recorded CSU's lone goal of the contest in the 85th minute, after John Wargo found him with a pass through the middle of the box. Williams' shot slipped between IPFW goalie Donavan Dowling and the post reaching the inside of the net, trimming IPFW's lead to 2-1. The goal marks his fourth of the season.
"After we went down two, we moved Josh up top to create more scoring opportunities," Kazemaini said. "He is an experienced player and can create plays no matter where we put him on the field. It was a little too late by the time he finally converted one of his shots, but it will be good to have going into the match against Detroit this weekend."
Stuver made four saves during the contest, with Dowling recording two saves and the win for IPFW.
IPFW held a 21-11 edge in shots throughout the match, with Williams leading the Vikings with five. Slavisa Ubiparipovic added a pair, while Admir Suljevic, John Wargo, Marco DiFranco and Justin Mancine each added one.
"Hopefully we learn from this because it will be the key to the rest of our league matches," Kazemaini said. "It's something that we need to work on before we have our next league game on the road, and we will have one more practice at Pitt to sort things out before then and also Detroit at home to work on coming out strong for the whole 90 minutes."
The Vikings are now 4-6-3 overall and 1-1-2 in Horizon League play going into Sunday's (Oct. 18) match against Detroit. The Titans will travel to Krenzler Field for a 2:00 p.m. kickoff, after the CSU women's team hosts Valparaiso at 12:00 noon.
