Men’s soccer ties Hartwick, clinch MAC Tournament berth

By Roger Sievers
Western Herald

At the beginning of the season, the Mid-American Conference coaches picked the Western Michigan University men’s soccer team to finish dead last in the conference.

Now, going into the last week of the season, the Broncos can confidently say they will be assured a spot in the four-team Mid-American Conference tournament after it’s 1-1 tie against Hartwick College and Bowling Green State University’s loss to Northern Illinois University.

The Brown and Gold put up a strong effort after a 12-hour bus ride to Oneonta, N.Y. nearly winning the game after freshman forward Joel Del Toro scored in the 43rd minute. Freshman midfielder Luis Lemus hit Del Toro with a pass on the left side of the pitch then Del Toro took care of the rest as he curled a ball to the far corner of the net. It was Del Toro’s second goal of the season and the first career point for Lemus.
p 
Bronco senior goal keeper Casey Aubil played great in net for WMU as he held Hartwick scoreless for 72 minutes until Jacob Karlgren tied up the game on a ball that was not cleared out of the box after a long throw-in. Aubil had seven saves in goal including one in overtime.

Hartwick out shot WMU 17-10 and also had a 7-0 advantage on corner kicks.

Western Michigan (6-8-1, 2-1-1 MAC) is now third in the Mid-American Conference behind Hartwick who with the tie improved their record to (8-2-4, 3-0-2 MAC). The number one team in the nation the University of Akron Zips lead the conference and the country with a record of (16-0-0, 5-0-0 MAC).

The six-team conference tournament used by the MAC in the past has been changed to a four-team tournament for the 2009 season and will be held at the No. 1 seeds location on Nov. 13.

Up next for the Broncos is two more conference games the first at Northern Illinois University Wednesday at 2 p.m. followed by the last home game of the season with Senior Appreciation Day against the University at Buffalo. Game time will be Saturday at 2 p.m. at the WMU Soccer Complex located on the Parkview Campus.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=11099

Posted by heraldstaff on Oct 31 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