Men's Soccer News

Southwestern 1 - Centre 0

Southwestern is consistently one of the more difficult teams to play in this conference. They are very well coached and play an extremely defensive oriented system and then look to counter out of that. And they do this very well. Following our loss to Trinity on Friday night, we knew that in order to remain in control of our post-season, a win at Southwestern was a must. In addition to them being a tough team to play, the field location does not make it much better. It sits in the middle of nowhere, and has little to no atmosphere. Plus, with absolutely no trees around it, the wind plays a significant factor in the game. Today would be no different.

The first half would turn out to be a tell-tale sign of what the day was going to be. With Southwestern packing it in defensively, we really couldn't get a rhythm offensively. They did a good job of limiting what our strikers were capable of doing, and we never really got behind them like we wanted to. From there, SU would counter us and created all of their chances this way. Centre could not get things flowing, and would have to settle at the half with a 0-0 tie.

The second half would start out a bit better for us, as we began to really control the possession, and create better opportunities on goal. For the half, Centre would outshoot SU 8-5, but it wouldn't be enough as SU would score in the 51 st minute. A hard fought goal on their part and a bit of a let down on ours. Their game-plan worked, and it really took us out of ours, so we have to give them credit. From here on out, we really pressed them, playing with 3 up top. This wouldn't come to work out however, as we would drop this decision 1-0.

Not how we had viewed our weekend in Texas , but it is what it is: two good teams and two conference losses. This just really takes us out of the driver seat and forces things to happen that are out of our hands. This is a great group that is still learning how to prepare for each and every match, and deal with all of the adversity that comes with a soccer game. But again, this is a great group and I have no doubt that we will rebound very well for this coming weekend. I think the key is we need to just have fun. This team plays extremely well when they are relaxed, loose, and enjoying themselves. If they carry that mentality into Saturday night, we should be in for some good soccer.

Looking forward to seeing everyone this weekend. It should be a good time with good food, good soccer, and good friends. The women play at 5, with the men kicking off at 7. DePauw has taken a few knocks this year, but have no doubt that they will bring everything they have when they play Centre…they always do. And throw in the fact that our record against DePauw over the past 7 years in 0-5-2, and it should be an exciting game.