Oct. 3, 2005
Contact: Brian Wolff
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Match 10
Cleveland State (0-8-1, 0-3) at Niagara (3-4-1, 0-0)
Date: Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2005
Time: 3:00 p.m. EDT
Site: Niagara Field (1,000) (Lewiston, N.Y.)
Series: Niagara leads 3-0-2
Last Mtg.: Niagara 0, CSU 0 (9/29/04; Mentor High School)
Match 11
UIC (4-3-1, 0-2) at Cleveland State
Date: Sunday, Oct. 9, 2005
Time: 11:00 a.m. EDT
Site: Krenzler Field (1,680) (Cleveland, Ohio)
Series: CSU Leads, 17-10-1
Last Mtg.: CSU 1, UIC 1 (9/26/04; Chicago,Ill.)
SETTING THE SCENE: The Cleveland State men's soccer team heads to Western New York for a non-conference match against Niagara on Tuesday, Oct. 4 at 3:00 p.m. before returning home to face UIC on Sunday, Oct. 9 at 11:00 a.m.
REVIEWING THE WEEK: The Vikings were home for their matches this past week, bull fell in both of them. He is a review of what happened:
Match 8 - UW-Milwaukee 1, Cleveland State 0 (Sept. 29, Krenzler Field)
The Vikings put forth their best defensive effort of the season during a 1-0 loss to the defending Horizon League Champion. CSU was outshot 18-9 and freshman goalkeeper Anthony DeMarco notched a career-high 13 saves, the largest single-match saves mark in the conference this year.
Match 9 - Butler 4, Cleveland State 0 (Oct. 2, Krenzler Field)
The Bulldogs scored three second-half goals in a six minute period to defeat CSU, 4-0. Butler scored its first goal in the 30th minute, before the three-spot after intermission. The goals were scored after a second yellow card was issued to Mark Zambra, forcing the Vikings to play shorthanded the rest of the match. DeMarco made a match-high five saves.
PREVIEWING THE VIKINGS: The Vikings are in the midst of their longest scoring drought since the 1999 season. They have netted just one goal in their last five matches and none in the last three. The Vikings are without the services of junior Ismail Ismail, who led the team in shots before breaking his left ankle in practice on Sept. 23. The CSU defense has been better of late, putting on their best performance in 1-0 loss to UW-Milwaukee. The improved defensive play has taken some pressure off freshman netminder Anthony DeMarco, who is second in the nation with 68 saves.
SCOUTING THE PURPLE EAGLES: If there is another team in the nation that relies on their goalkeeper as much as CSU, it is Niagara. Senior goalkeeper Eric Sullivan leads the nation with 9.43 saves per game and trails DeMarco by two saves for tops in the nation. The Purple Eagles are coming off a 2-1 victory over Colgate, the first time they have beaten the Raiders in 12 years. Senior Matt Stedman leads the Purple Eagles in goals (4), assists (4) and scoring (12), scoring in five of seven matches.
AND THE FLAMES: The Flames are coming off an 8-1 victory against Centenary, the most goals they have scored in a match since 1991. UIC began the season with a four-match unbeaten streak before dropping three in a row. The Flames welcome back four members who earned postseason honors in 2004. Sophomore Pavle Dundjer, who notches a hat trick in the last match, is the reigning Horizon League Newcomer of the Year and a All-Horizon League first team member. Junior Eric Cervantes also earned first team honors. The Flames also have junior Kenneth Nightingale and Pawel Otachel who earned All-Horizon League second team honors.
Ismail Ismail DONE FOR THE YEAR: Junior college transfer Ismail Ismail will miss the remainder of the season after breaking his left ankle in practice on Sept. 23. Before the injury, Ismail led the Vikings with 15 shots. Ismail played two seasons at Green River CC, leading the team in points (22) his second season.
DEMARCO SOLID IN NET: Freshman goalkeeper Anthony DeMarco has been more impressive each match he plays in net. DeMarco notched a career high with 13 saves in the 1-0 loss to UW-Milwaukee (Sept. 29). DeMarco currently is second in the nation with 68 saves. DeMarco is on pace to record 128 saves this season, which would rank him third all time in single-season saves for the Vikings.
NEW FACES ALL AROUND: The 2005 Vikings came into this season with 13 newcomers, many of whom play significant roles on the team. CSU started a season-high nine newcomers at Akron (Sept. 9), with the only returners being All-Horizon League second team members Craig Coleman and Cormac Finn. The newcomers have 62 of 99 starts between them which is 65% of the team's starts. The Vikings have the fewest number of returning starters from last season in the Horizon League.
IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL: The 2005 Vikings have members that hail from six different countries, including citizens from the United States, Canada, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand and Norway. In addition, two of the three CSU coaches are from the United Kingdom in head coach Pete Curtis and graduate assistant Steve Kehoe.
HEAD COACH Pete Curtis: Pete Curtis is in his sixth year at Cleveland State after five years at the University of Charleston in West Virginia. Curtis is the eighth coach in the history of CSU men's soccer. Curtis was named Horizon League co-coach of the year in 2002 and last season put one player on the All-Horizon League first team and two players on the second team.
UP NEXT: The Vikings play a pair of matches next week. They begin home for a non-conference match with IPFW on Tuesday, Oct 11 at 7:00 p.m. They hit the road for a conference match at Detroit on Sunday, Oct. 16.
