On a rain-drenched WakeMed Soccer Park field in Cary, North Carolina, the University of Virginia Cavalier men’s soccer team out-lasted the University of Akron Zips in penalty kicks, while adding a whole host of teasers to the college soccer world.
Not only did the Wahoos ruin the Zips’ run at a perfect undefeated season (despite what the NCAA official record book might say, and no matter how much a PK win sucks, I find it hard to call their semifinal result against the UNC Tarheels anything other than a win), but UVa’s 6th championship also drew them within 1 title of the University of Indiana Hoosiers program for bragging rights as the most dominant NCAA Division 1 Men’s soccer program since the Saint Louis University Billikens’ heyday in the 60’s and 70’s, despite this being not only Head Coach George Gelnovatch’s first College Cup victory, but the first non-Bruce Arena-led championship.
Unfortunately, that’s about all of the good that can be said about this game and the weekend of soccer from a fan’s perspective. Not only did 2 out of the 3 games in Cary wind-up scoreless through regulation and double overtimes requiring the crap shoot of a penalty kick shootout to settle the result, but the third game was UVa’s Friday evening semifinal with the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, a 1-1 tie through regulation that took a golden goal from Brian Ownby to settle.
Doing the math, that means that in 313 minutes of play, there were a grand total of 3 goals this weekend, all scored by UVa, and none of which of the breathtaking variety: Tony Tchani’s junk goal on a rebound of a Jonathan Villanueva shot; an own goal deflection by goalie Diego Restrepo off a Corben Bone shot from no angle along the goal line; and Brian Ownby’s breakaway golden goal.
The weather can take some of the blame, with much of the championship game being played in a steady downpour, but even in the 2 semifinal games almost nobody seemed willing or able to step up and take a chance at making any of the goalkeepers show what they could do. The most difficult "save" any of them had to make basically consisted of deflecting long-range shots directly at them over the cross-bar.
In the end though, this all goes to show that college soccer is a living, breathing example of how much easier it is to destroy chances than create them. UVa’s attack had a much more attractive passing game, filled with a variety of deft blind layoffs and cuts to over-lapping runners, classy side-to-side passing to switch the point of attack, clearly demonstrating the individual skill Gelnovatch had at his disposal, but their failure to either challenge Akron goalkeeper David Meves in the slightest basically nullified anything other than the style points they might have gained in the eyes of neutral judges if soccer was scored like figure skating.
For their part the Zips, owners of the #1 rated attack in division 1 that averaged 2 1/2 goals per game, had their own troubles pulling the trigger when they were in UVa’s final third of the field. Their stars like the freshmen duet of Teal Bunbury and Darlington Nagbe seemed like they constantly needed to take just one more touch, beat one more defender, that left them looking more like they were more trying to dribble the ball into the back of the net than actually attempt a shot through the Hoos’ smothering defense and take a chance at a deflection at worst. I mean, if you’re just going to give the ball away, why not take a shot at glory while you’re doing it?
Not that any of this should have come as much of a surprise given that UVa and Akron came into the game ranked as the #1 and #2 ranked defenses in the country, 3rd and 4th respectively on the NCAA’s all-time Goals-Against Average records (0.29 and 0.30). And I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon with Major League Soccer and international academies in Europe and south of the border offering anybody with any sort of attacking ability something that college soccer doesn’t (yet) have the ability to match: cash-in-pocket.
Still, all that cold rainwater coming from outside observers like myself shouldn’t take anything from UVa’s celebration, since while college soccer championships aren’t the launching pads to professional stardom that their basketball and football counterparts are, it’s still something worth remembering and rejoicing over for those who participated and followed the team through the long, hard season. I just wish it were something more satisfying to have watched.
-Thanks to my good friend Brad Paton for writing this HooYa! blog entry. I probably could have fudged my way through this entry myself, but decided to let Brad work his soccer loving magic… I have never seen a collegiate soccer match, and understand soccer about as well as I do flying Boeing 777’s. Brad Paton covers the American soccer scene for US Soccer Review (www.ussoccerreview.com), and wishes that he had played for Drake University 20 years later than he did.
