Men's Soccer News

Centre 5 - Millsaps 0

After a tough match against Rhodes on Friday, the boys were ready to put it behind them and get a good win on Sunday. Millsaps is a much improved team then recent years, but they are still very young, starting 5-6 freshman on any given day. In addition, Millsaps plays their game on field-turf, which is a bit of a change for our guys. I think it works well in terms of our technical ability, however the field really seems to drain the legs much quicker than a natural surface. Not to mention the fact that on this day, the temperature on the turf had to of exceeded 100 degrees. The guys knew it would take a total group effort to get the result in this one.

The game would start of quick with Centre getting a very good part of the possession. However Millsaps would show very quickly that if given the opportunity, they will possess and get behind very well…nearly scoring on their first true possession. This may have sparked the guys a bit and our level of play picked up a bit, however we were missing several clear goal scoring opportunities. Finally in the 28 th minute, sophomore Chris Baumann (Louisville, Ky.) would put Centre on the board. Following a deflected shot by fellow Louisvillian David Horne, Chris would hit a one-time shot home for his 1 st goal of the season. This would be our only finished opportunity for the half however, as the score would remain 1-0 at the break. For the half, Centre would only outshoot Millsaps 4-3 but would have a 4-1 edge on corner kicks.

The second half started much the same, with Centre controlling much of the possession. I wish I could express how hot it was on the turf today, as we played all 23 field players in both halves today. The boys would push through and just 1:40 into the half Centre would notch another goal. Taking an assist from fellow frontrunner Brandon Gish (Owensboro , Ky.), freshman Richard Hinton (Ft. Wayne , Ind.) would touch around his defender and beat the Millsaps goalkeeper to the near post for his first collegiate goal. Hinton has really started to come into form of late; expect good things from him to finish out the season.

It would be over 35 minutes before Centre would get through the Millsaps defense again. This time Baumann would set-up Nick Judah (Louisville, Ky.) who would turn on his defender and beat the goalkeeper far post to push the score to 3-0. Then just over three minutes later Judah would strike again off an assist from senior Derek Roberts (Knoxville, Tenn.), beat his defender, and slot home his second goal of the game. Judah wasn't done yet however, and would notch his first hat-trick of his collegiate career in the 89th minute after receiving a delivery from junior defender Joseph Fisher (Cullman, Ala.). It would be Centre's first hat-trick since 2002 and the scoring would finish with Centre on top 5-0.

Two quality wins to start the SCAC 2-0. We now travel home (10+ hour bus ride) to face Sewanee and Oglethorpe next weekend…the only two teams to be us in conference play last season. The team now stands at 7-1 overall.