Facing obstacles, club soccer falls to Kennesaw

The Georgia College men’s club soccer team suffered its first loss to the Spring season Feb. 11, as the men traveled to Kennesaw State University for a 2-1 battle.

The last time they played on Kennesaw’s turf field, the men recorded a 3-0 win for the team’s first meeting.

Saturday held a bad outcome for the Bobcats, preceded with a bad start.

“We had a lot of things going against us. Our coach wasn’t there along with basically our entire midfield.”

-Nathan Pulliam, Sophomore forward

The word rival may be inappropriate in this time, being that this was only the second meeting for both teams, though the grit and determination from both opponents said differently.

The Bobcats student coach Elliott Payne was absent with conflicts, as was most of Georgia College’s team.

Last week the men played with no substitutes against Macon State College, and they showed up to Kennesaw with only one.

With no coach and once again outnumbered 12 to 25, the Bobcats arrived minutes before kickoff after battling Atlanta traffic.

Sophomore forward Nathan Pulliam, who put up a hat trick last weekend, showed up to the cold 6 p.m. start ready for more.

“We had a lot of things going against us,” Pulliam said. “Our coach wasn’t there along with basically our entire mid-field and we were late because of intense traffic.”

The Bobcats took control of the first few minutes possessing the ball and distributing it on all sides of the field.

The underdog mentality gave the men the advantage when center mid-fielder Mitchell Doud gave an assist to a wide open Pulliam, who one-touched Georgia College’s first goal of the night in the left side net.

The initial strike by the Bobcats led to a dirty game played by Kennesaw. Resulting in blatantly malicious slide tackles and a Kennesaw State player’s vocal assault due to some consistent Georgia College steals.

The play in the regular field was going the Bobcats way, but they lost this one off set plays.

Sophomore goalie Nick Creighton blocked a nicely placed corner kick with an ell effort dive.

However the ball reflected off Creighton’s gloves right to an unmarked Kennesaw player, who tied the game at one. After another Georgia College out of bounds ball, Kennesaw State set up for another corner kick.

“We got killed on set plays,” junior defender William Strawbridge said.

Conscious of the last corner kick resulting in a goal, lead defender Strawbridge marked up close to his opponent and had orchestrated a solid man defense in the box.

But with minutes left in the first half, a sprinting Kennesaw State player, coming all the way from mid field, timed the corner perfectly, blasting a header past a diving Creighton.

“There are so many things in sports that are simple,” Strawbridge said. “But if you don’t do them, like marking up on a man in the box, you’ll lose.”

A brutal second half saw zero goals for both teams and only strengthened the “rival”.

Kennesaw’s 2-1 advantage in the first would be the final scoring action of the night.

Postgame, Kennesaw exclaimed their interest in coming to Milledgeville later this semester for a break even game three. The soccer team travels to Georgia Tech early March to take on the Jackets club team.

Posted by Taylor Lamb on Feb 17 2011. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.