The Peak

Clan drop home-opener to Seattle

By Matt Lee, Associate Staff Contributor

The SFU men had a week to prepare for their first home game of the season against Seattle University on Saturday afternoon, but came up shy at Fox Field, losing by a 1-0 score to a top-ranked Redhawks team.

With the loss, the Clansmen have dropped two straight games, following last weekend’s loss to Western Washington University, and now sit with a record of 6-4 in 2008. This is the first time the men’s soccer team has lost two games in a row in over two years.

The lone Seattle goal came in the 87th minute when Kyle Peterman took a pass from teammate C.J. Hamel and put it past SFU keeper Thomas Lindley, who stopped three saves in the losing effort.

Both teams had plenty of opportunities to score, but some quality saves on both ends combined with excellent defense and positioning kept the contest a one-goal affair.

“A momentary lack of concentration allowed for Seattle to score a wonder goal,” said SFU head coach Alan Koch following the match. “It’s disappointing because we had our chances today, but we simply did not put them away. Tactically we played well, we had a great work rate, but we were just lacking the killer instinct in front of the net, and we will need that next Wednesday when we play UBC.”

Call it bad luck or a few bad bounces, but the Clan men aren’t making any excuses for their last two losses. Two weeks ago, SFU was ranked the fourth-best team in the country. The loss a week ago dropped them to 10th, and the team is sure to see another dip with a consecutive loss.

And with just one-third of the regular season left to play, the lads know they’ve got to dig in for a tough final five games if they’re going to make a return to the national championships like the SFU squad which finished in the semi-finals last season.

Two weekends ago, the men’s team had their six-game winning streak come to an abrupt end with a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Western Washington, a team hovering at the .500 mark. They were outshot 15-13 and committed a season-high 16 fouls on the rain-soaked pitch.

“Last week was a really frustrating contest for us. We didn’t play as well as we’re capable of playing.” Koch added. “We sat in the vans at the border for three hours and had to have the game time pushed back twice and we had only 15 minutes to warm up for the game. [However] there are no excuses for the defeat by any means.”

With two losses in a row, there is some pressure for the boys to get back to their winning ways in a hurry. Up next for the Clansmen is another tough contest with cross-town rival UBC, who were sitting at an undefeated 4-0 record heading into press time.

UBC remains one of the top teams in the CIS and their Wednesday battle will be for the 2008 Soccer Express Adidas Challenge Cup, which the Clan won last year with a 1-0 victory. SFU is 11-9-4 in their all-time series against the Thunderbirds.

“UBC has a great team, arguably the best in Canada.” Koch answered. “Our games are always really tight, and hopefully we can go over there and take care of business again.”