Oct. 26, 2005
Contact: Brian McCann
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -- Cleveland State allowed a pair of first half goals, the first in the 14th minute, as the Vikings fell at Bowling Green, 3-1 on Wednesday afternoon at BG's Cochrane Field.
Playing on a cold and blustery day on the windswept flatlands of northwest Ohio, the Vikings fell behind 1-0 at the 13:07 mark when Bowling Green's Justin Kim rebounded his own missed shot and slid it past CSU netminder Anthony DeMarco.
"We totally controlled play for the first 15 minutes of the match and the only time that they got the ball near our goal, they were able to poke the ball in off a scramble in the box," head coach Pete Curtis said. "We were able to get behind their defense on a number of occasions but the final ball just let us down. Our shots weren't the quality that they needed to be."
The Flacons extended the lead to 2-0 in the 31st minute when Abiola Sandy gathered in the rebound off a deflection and scored from within the box.
Cleveland State came out of the intermission playing well and finally received some tangible results from their offensive push.
The Vikings closed to within a goal at the 48:52 mark when Kim Kroken fielded a cornerkick from Steve Trapp and scored his second goal in as many matches.
"We organized ourselves at halftime and came back out and Kim scored the quick goal," Curtis said. "We had more opportunities in the second half, but we dwelled too long on the ball and allowed the defenders the time to recover.
Cleveland State was unable to score the rest of the way with Bowling Green adding its last goal in the final minute off a breakaway. Andy Synk slipped behind the defense and went in uncontested against Kasey Gray, who played the second half in goal for CSU.
"That last goal wasn't the fault of our keeper because we were all pushing forward to try and tie the match and their guy (Synk) was playing behind us," Curtis said. "It was the chance we had to take."
CSU was outshot, 22-14 in the match with DeMarco making two saves in the first half and Gray adding four stops in the second. Bowling Green goalie Paul Shoemaker recorded five saves in the contest.
The Vikings remain on the road this week when they close the regular season with a Sunday afternoon (Oct. 30) match at Loyola.
