Men’s soccer losses to Buffalo in double overtime

By Roger Sievers
Western Herald

(Jo Wei Looi/Western Herald) Western Michigan senior midfielder Charlie Watts kicks the ball during WMU's game against Buffalo Saturday.

The University at Buffalo Bulls scored in the last 10 seconds of double overtime to come from behind and beat the Western Michigan men’s soccer team 2-1, spoiling Senior Appreciation day on at windy, but otherwise picturesque afternoon at the WMU Soccer Complex.

“We are extremely disappointed,” WMU head coach Stu Riddle said. “We got what we deserved [in the loss]. After we scored we just switched off. The one positive we can take from today was that win, lose or draw, we knew we were going to go to the [Mid-American Conference] Tournament.”

The match remained scoreless after the first half, although the Broncos out shot the Bulls 11-3. WMU had lots of opportunities to score on breakaways while Buffalo had shots bounce off the post.

Junior midfielder Saeed Sulemana Baba changed the complexion of the game, or so everyone thought in the 86th minute as he scored off a pass in the box by midfielder C.J. Brown that Sulemana Baba snuck through a crowd of players for his team leading 12th goal of the year.

The statistics from WMU’s game against Jackson Community College were erased because the NCAA said that it must be at least Division III competition for statistics to count, otherwise Sulemana Baba would have 14 goals right now.

However, not even two minutes later in the 87th minute Mike Unwin, Buffalo’s leading goal scorer, tied the game up at one after finishing a free kick from Alex Marello on the backside of the net sending the game into overtime.

The game was hotly contested with tempers flaring through out the match. In overtime, the frustration boiled over as both teams got into a shoving match on the field.

“It is always going to get chippy in [Mid-American Conference] games. We see each other a lot,” senior goalkeeper Casey Aubil said.

The game looked to end up in a tie, but in the last ten seconds of the second overtime Buffalo goal keeper Nick Fetterman punted a ball over the Brown and Gold defense that found forward Dan Bulley who beat Aubil one-on-one with a shot that went into the left corner of the net.

“In the overtimes we tried, but we lost focused,” freshman forward Kai Mendes said. “We can’t forget about this loss. We have to learn from our mistakes.”

The Broncos out shot the Bulls 22-15 for the game. Fetterman made ten saves in goal for Buffalo while Aubil made two saves for WMU.

“To have their goalie get an assist is unacceptable,“ Sulemana Baba said. “We missed our chances, but we just have to keep our heads up. The good thing is that this game didn’t change anything. We were going to play Hartwick next week no matter what, it just would have been nice to finished second in the MAC.”

The game was on Senior Appreciation day as Aubil and senior midfielders, Shaun Clements, Tyler Rosenhagen and Charlie Watts were honored before the game.

“They are great players,” Riddle said. “It will be hard to replace their leadership. It just was a travesty of justice that their last home game was a loss like this.”

Among what they will miss most Rosenhagen said that he will miss being around the team and the atmosphere. Aubil echoed Rosenhagen’s thoughts.

WMU finishes the regular season at 6-9-1 and 3-2-1 in the MAC and third in the conference a year after finishing  3-15-1 and 2-4-0 in the MAC. They will now play No. 2 seed Hartwick College next Friday at 3 p.m. in the semifinals of the Mid-American Conference Tournament held at top seed and No. 1 team in the nation: the University of Akron.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=11507

Posted by heraldstaff on Nov 7 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

http://HeraldStaff