Sports

Men's soccer surges into national rankings, reaches No. 18

By Keith Franklin
cfrankl7@mscd.edu

The Metro men's soccer team showed their mettle this weekend by winning three games at home in five days. They now have a season-high five straight victories.

On Friday Sept.. 30, Metro defeated regional opponent and nationally ranked No. 11 West Texas A&M University 5-3 in a game that featured four ejections. The win pushed the Buffaloes out of the top 25 and vaulted Metro to the No. 18 spot.

Sunday Oct. 2 found Metro facing Westminster College of Salt Lake City. Metro beat the visiting Griffins 1-0 in one of their cleanest games to date.Metro faced Colorado Christian University on Tuesday, Oct. 4 and shut them out by a score of 11-0.

Metro found itself against a wall when West Texas put two goals on the board early. The first goal came on a pass from the right side that found Omar Morales undefended. Metro's Pat Laughlin, Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference freshman preseason Player-of-the-Year, made a mistake in leaving Morales alone in front of the goal. He paid for it by sitting out the rest of the game and most of Sunday's.

The rest of the team didn't look much better. For the first 15 minutes against West Texas, Metro looked to be stiff-legged and confused. After a sudden momentum shift, Metro no longer looked like the victim.

Preston Borrego dribbled the ball deep down the right side and then crossed it to the middle. Zack Cousins headed it to Phillip Owen, who put the ball away for a goal.

Eight minutes later, Borrego made a mistake. He was tackled hard from behind and came up with the ball in his hands standing over the defender. The referee was already on his way over with yellow card in hand for the rough tackle, but it was too late for Borrego. He slammed the ball to the ground beside the opposing player and was ejected. Instead of giving up, the Roadrunners fought harder while playing a man short.

With a tattered defense, Metro looked for its offense to drag the team to victory.

Metro tied the game before halftime with a Shaun Elbaum goal. Cousins passed the ball to the middle from the deep left corner where he found Elbaum positioned nicely for the put-away high into the goal.

By this point, West Texas had already lost one player to ejection for a rough tackle, evening the number of players on the field. Before the half, the Buffaloes lost a second player in the same manner.

The tables were turned in the second half with A&M now playing a man down to Metro. It took the 'Runners 16 minutes to find the goal again, but they found it twice in under a minute to go up 4-2.

A third West Texas player was ejected a short time later for mouthing off to the referee, and Metro began to run the clock out. Suddenly, defeating a nationally ranked team was within its grasp.

The Buffaloes were able to steal the ball from the defense once more for a goal, making Metro head coach Ken Parsons visibly frustrated. Metro scored one more time before the game ended to make the final score 5-3.

When Metro scored the go-ahead goal in the second half and the bench erupted, there were several key players who weren't in the game. Suddenly, the bench seemed deeper. Metro is also playing without Aldo Alcaraz-Reza, who is out for the season. The 'Runners are able to do all of this because players on the bench have stepped up.

"I don't think we have tapped them (the bench) as much as we probably could, but then again, we haven't put ourselves in a position where we can drop any games," Parsons said. "I think that the bench would do fine if they went in there, but you've got to give a little bit of ownership to the starters."

Andrew Donnelly filled-in after Borrego was ejected and scored the final goal.

"He played very well and he's going to be a legitimate option now for us, off the bench," Parsons said.

On Sunday, Metro defeated the visiting Westminster College Griffins in a 1-0 nail biter. Metro was forced to play without Borrego again because of the ejection on Friday. Donnelly made his first start. He played defense and was instrumental in holding the Griffins scoreless.

Metro has the highest number of yellow cards per game in the conference, but on Sunday the team received only one.

"With this game not being as important in the big scope of things," Parsons said, "Our focus needs to be on next week and not putting ourselves in a situation where cards can hurt us because we pick up a silly one here."

On Tuesday, the Metro coaches got a glimpse at their future when seldom seen faces replaced the starters. Metro faced the bottom dweller in the conference, Colorado Christian University.

CCU has a new coach and has been beaten up in RMAC play.

Metro seemed to score at will once it got in rhythm, putting up four goals in a four-and-a-half-minute span, and three during a later five-minute span. Both Elbaum and Porras got hat tricks.

Metro had 36 shots on goal to CCU's one. The Cougars' lone shot came in the first half on what happened to be the first shot of the game.

Metro now goes on a Texas road trip for three games beginning Friday, Oct. 7 and will not return until Friday, Oct. 21.