Bowling Green State University Athletics
Bowling Green State University
CANISIUS
Sandy's Late Goal Not Enough for Falcon Victory
September 16, 2007 | Men's Soccer
Sept. 16, 2007
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio - After trailing 1-0 for a small portion of Sunday afternoon's match, senior Abiola Sandy sunk the equalizing goal in the 76th minute for Bowling Green State University (2-3-1), but the Falcons were unable to overcome visiting Canisius College (1-3-0) in the final match of the 2007 Falcon Invitational. Canisius' Alan McGreal scored his second goal of the afternoon in the 96th minute, earning the Griffins Sunday's sudden death overtime victory, 2-1.
"College soccer games are played in moments, unfortunately we lost a moment of the match and it resulted in the loss of the match," said head coach Fred Thompson.
"This was a great game because it was competitive from the start. To their credit, Canisius did a good job defending, they moved the ball well and had very dangerous players on the field."
Entering the match, if the Falcons were to win this weekend's tournament, not only would they need to beat Canisius, the squad would need to pound in at least five goals to match Detroit's 6-1 two-match goal differentiation.
It seemed as if BGSU was on their way to chipping away at the lofty Detroit advantage when Ryan Davis converted his own rebound giving the Falcons a 1-0 lead for just a split second. The goal was immediately negated as a result of Davis' offside positioning on Chuko Evwaraye's initial serve into the middle which created the scoring chance.
At the conclusion of the first period, each team remained scoreless despite creating numerous scoring chances. Bowling Green went on to outshoot Canisius 21-11 and forced Adam Cately to make five saves in goal.
Canisius claimed its first lead at 67:56 when McGreal challenged goalkeeper Paul Shoemaker out of his defensive comfort zone on a breakaway scoring the first Griffins goal of the tournament.
The lead was short lived due to Sandy and fellow senior Ryan Perea's execution of a successful give-and-go which evened the score at 1-1 (76:00) with 14:00 still remaining in regulation.
The dogfight was then forced to continue into an overtime period.
Bowling Green saw multiple chances to end the sudden death period but it was McGreal's golden goal at 96:31 that propelled Canisius to their first win of the season.
The late scoring surge was not unusual for the visiting squad seeing as each of their prior goals this season had been scored in the final 10:00 of regulation play.
"For the most part, we moved well and had wonderful possessions that created scoring opportunities. From the sheer numbers of chances we are finding, we need to finish and put the ball in the net," said Thompson.
With a perfect 2-0 record, Detroit was crowned champions of the tournament, while Canisius was named the runner-up due to today's head-to-head. BGSU and the University of Central Arkansas followed suit in third and fourth, respectively. "Congratulations to Detroit for the wins this weekend," said Thompson. "They played well and were able to eek out the overtime victory earlier today."
Detroit's Christian King was named the tournament MVP with Renato Susnja, Mateusz Szwed, Simon Zahra and Ken Simon earning All-Tournament honors. Canisius' McGreal, Simba Aberdeen and Adam Cately represented the Griffins on the All-Tournament squad, while BGSU's Abiola Sandy and Paul Shoemaker and UCA's Matt Marlin were also recognized.
"I am proud of the way both Paul and Abby played this weekend," said Thompson. "Paul was responsible for a few big saves to keep us in games and Abby's partnership with Hunter [Van Houten] in the midfield was outstanding seeing as it is a new position for him."
In 206:31, Shoemaker made eight saves and posted a .800 save percentage with a shutout while Sandy translated four shots on goal into two points (2g).
The Falcons will next host in-state foe Ohio State on Thursday (Sept. 27) afternoon at 4:00 p.m.
BGSU SOCCER
