Oct. 21, 2003
FORT WAYNE, Ind. - An early goal by Bryan Fecke was all the offense the Cleveland State men's soccer team could muster, as the Vikings fell at the hands of IPFW, 2-1, on Tuesday night in Fort Wayne, Ind.
The sophomore from Dayton tallied his first goal of the season off an assist from Spencer Lappin to give the Vikings (6-9-1) an early lead just over three minutes into the match, but CSU could not again find the back of the net. The Vikings took the one-goal margin into the break, but could not make the lead stand up in the second half.
"We controlled play for much of the first half," head coach Pete Curtis said. "We had quite a few scoring chances, but lacked the composure in front of the goal to get the job done."
IPFW (6-8-1) countered with a pair of goals in a 2:02 span in the second half, with Craig Vande Vusse scoring both markers.
"We just had a five minute lapse in concentration on defense, and we gave up two goals," Curtis said. "A lack of composure on offense and a lapse in defensive pressure seem to have been the story of our club since the Pittsburgh match."
The Vikings were without the services of Stephen Ademolu, who sat out the match as a precautionary move to avoid him picking up his fifth yellow card of the season, which would require him to miss Friday's critical Horizon League match with Butler at Krenzler Field.
"This gave us an opportunity to give Stephen a bit of a rest," Curtis said. "He's been carrying a lot of the burden on offense, and he's much too valuable for us not to have against Butler."
Friday's home match with Butler, the final regular season home match for the Vikings this fall, will begin at 7 p.m. at Krenzler Field. Friday is also Senior Night for the three Viking seniors, Benny Eck, Jim Sears and Matteo Zappa.
