Men’s Soccer Ends Season 11-5-2

The Frosturg men’s soccer (11-4-2) team competed in the first round of the ECAC South Atlantic Region Championship where they lost 2-1 to seventh seed Alvernia (7-7-5).

Like the NCAA, teams who don’t make the tournament that are eligible for the ECAC’s are chosen to participate and still have an opportunity to play if they are selected.

The Bobcats have earned a spot in the ECAC tournament four of the past five seasons. Typically an eight team regional tournament, this year’s competition only hosted seven.

The FSU/AU matchup was one of three games in the opening round on Wednesday. Unfortunately Frostburg will not be advancing to the final four regional with the highest remaining seed.

The seventh seeded Crusaders (now 8-7-5) scored one goal in each half en route to the win. They now advance to the championship, hosted by top seed Penn State Behrend.

Head Coach Keith Byrnes gave his input on the game stating, “We had a ton of possession but we never played a good final ball to get into dangerous scoring situations. I thought we did a good job switching the point of attack and getting the ball up the field but we didn’t get a lot of shots because that last pass was either intercepted or someone got dispossessed.”

Things took a slight turn when Bobcat freshman Guy Nabo headed home his 12^th goal of the season with just 1:02 to play to draw FSU within one goal and hand the hosts some late momentum. Freshman Hunter Jarmon was credited with the assist on the free kick.

All in all, this season came to a close with some injuries and a few minor missteps. One of those worth mentioning is center midfielder Serigne Gueye who received a red card earlier in the season. Alas, probably labeled as the defining turning point of the season Coach Keith pointed out that, “He [Serigne] was an important asset to this team. He started for most of the games so not having him out there hurt us, especially when he had to sit those suspensions.” Although he sat out for a game, he got two consecutive yellow cards in another game (which equals a red card as well) and was supposed to be suspended for two games, but instead sat out only one. Given that, Frostburg was forced to forfeit the rest of their rather prominent regular season.

Despite closing the season in an undesirable fashion, the future is looking very bright. With only one senior graduating next year, the rest of the team is returning. One thing Coach Keith regards is the young promising talent the team has. “We were very young this year and had a lot of freshman who played significant minutes. If we have good class similar to this year’s class, I think we will have an abundance of talent and hopefully a lot of guys can be called upon to expand on what we were able to do this season.”

FSU caps its 2015 season with an 11-5-2 overall record.