Nov. 16, 2008
Contact: Brian McCann
CHICAGO, Ill. - Loyola's John Halma scored the only goal of the Horizon League Championship as the Ramblers defeated Cleveland State, 1-0, on Sunday afternoon at Flames Field.
The Vikings, who were playing in the league title game for the first time since 2002, dropped to 9-8-3 this season. Today's setback was just the second loss in the last 11 matches for the Vikings, who began the season with a 1-6-2 record.
Since the start of October, CSU has gone 8-2-1, finishing third in the regular season standings and knocking off Wright State and No. 21 Butler to advance to the league championship match.
Loyola, the tournament's fifth seed, improved to 12-6-3 and earned the Horizon League's automatic bid to the upcoming NCAA tournament.
"It's kind of disappointing to lose in the championship match, but I have to give Loyola a lot of credit," head coach Ali Kazemaini said. "They are a strong, experience, athletic and physical team. We figured it was going to be a one goal game and whoever got that first goal was going to win. Unfortunately, it wasn't us today."
After playing 74 scoreless minutes of soccer, the Ramblers got on the scoreboard at the 74:23 mark on Halma's seventh goal of the season.
Just two seconds earlier, Loyola's Willie Koss had a shot that was saved by CSU goalkeeper Nick Harpel, but Halma followed the miss and was able to score off the rebound.
The Vikings had two chances after the Rambler goal, but a Marco DiFranco shot at the 82:49 mark was saved by LU goalkeeper Brian Byrne that led to a Viking corner kick.
Slavisa Ubiparipovic played the ensuing corner kick in and DiFranco had another chance, but his shot was blocked.
The Vikings were outshot for the match, 11-4, including a 7-2 deficit in shots on goal. In addition to DiFranco's shot on goal, Nenad Stojkovic had one.
"We had a couple of chances to score, but we just couldn't connect on that final pass," Kazemaini said. "There was a lot of attacking today, but not many chances for goals were few and far between. Loyola just took advantage of their opportunity and scored."
Harpel finished with six saves to raise his season total to 104 saves, while Byrne saved both shots that he faced.
Despite the loss to Loyola, it served as yet another reminder of how far along the Vikings have come this season. CSU lost at Loyola, 5-0, during the regular season.
"It was gut-check time during the middle of the season and the back-to-back overtime wins over Green Bay and Milwaukee really jump started our season," Kazemaini said. "Our team went into the season as boys and came out as men and the experience of playing in the tournament championship with only help as we return our entire team next season. I am happy that we were able to establish a sense of pride to the program this season and I look forward to building upon that next year."
