The Observer, October 19, 2007
Volume XL, Issue 8
Men's soccer gets tenth win against Mellon, falls to Emory
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The Spartans split another two games of conference play last week, improving their record to 10-3 on the season. More importantly however, the team has fallen to 2-2 conference play. After such a promising start, the Spartans can only feel disappointed at their recent troubles, especially against UAA opponents. Yet hope is not lost; last year the Spartans sat in nearly the same position. With only a handful of games left, and the majority of them conference games, the Spartans won out and took the UAA title, riding their momentum into a great postseason performance.
Their game-plan against Emory last week was to come out fast and apply pressure on the Eagles. Unfortunately, the opposite happened. Emory scored their first goal in the 25th minute and struck again at the beginning of the second half. Playing catch-up the entire game, Case finally began to create opportunities as play wound down. Freshman Jordan Fox scored a goal in the 76th minute, and put Case in a great position to make a comeback. "The last 25 minutes we put them under great pressure and scored a goal with 15 minutes to play," said coach Dan Palmer. "Unfortunately we could not get the equalizer."
To add to their woes, Pranav Lohitsa, the team's assists leader, and Neal Duryea, one of the team's senior leaders, both fell victim to injury. Unable to play in the Carnegie Mellon game, the team was forced to make last-minute adjustments. That game might just be the spark that the Spartans needed.
The team came out and dominated like they have done so many times before this season. While Mellon struck first, the Spartans answered, and answered strong. The first goal came in the form of an R.J. French penalty kick in the 25th minute. Then, only seven minutes later, Kevin Biggart struck on an unassisted goal. Justin Steggerda rounded out the scoring in the second half with a goal off an assist from Jordan Fox. The junior trio have now accounted for half of the Spartans' 26 goals. Defensively, Chad Skidmore, while surrendering a goal early, played another fantastic game, saving eight of the nine shots on goal.
This week the team faces an opponent that's very close to home, Lake Erie College. The Storm have been playing good soccer, coming to Case touting an 8-5-1 record. With Case playing well and front- running for a postseason bid, a win against the Spartans would look very good on their own résumé. "They will certainly be gunning for us," said Palmer. "They are a good team capable of scoring a lot of goals."
Right now the Spartans are just focused on taking one game at a time. With the second half of their conference schedule looming, they must looking ahead. "Our only task right now is to focus on this game and play our best," assured Palmer. The game against Lake Erie was played Thursday night, after press time.
