Men's Soccer Battles Exhaustion
Mariella Angeles
After an 11-0 win last week against Blackburn, the Spartans experienced two losses. On Saturday, Sept. 15, the men traveled to Kalamazoo, MI, to go toe to toe with Kalamazoo College. The game remained scoreless until the 41th minute when Kalamazoo scored.
Josh Gonzalez, a sophomore forward exploring a major in environmental studies and biology, had five shots throughout the game. He earned the honor of the United Soccer Coaches national men’s and women’s Players of the Week for NCAA Divisions I, II and III. He was also named the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference’s Offensive Player of the Week and also the Division III’s Men’s Player of the Week.
Even with the numerous accolades, Gonzalez has plans to improve. “I want to finish more chances and get more confident on the ball,” he said.
Matthew Roop, junior center-back and a sport management and marketing major and also one of the captains on the team, noted that if they played like they have been during practice, then the games this week should have favorable outcomes, but that was not the case. “I played a poor ball across the middle [of the field] that got intercepted, which lead to Kalamazoo scoring,” Roop said.
He noted it was a frustrating feeling to concede a goal right before half-time. The team almost had it this game, but the efforts were not enough. The Black and Gold fell to Kalamazoo 1-0.
On Sept. 16, the men travelled to Greencastle, IN, to face DePauw University. Sophomore Alex Baker noted that during halftime he did not have much energy and his goal going into the second half was to get a goal back.
Gonzalez was feeling exhausted, given he played a full 90-minute game just the day before. Albeit feeling out of energy after the half, Gonzalez had an optimistic view that they were going to turn things around.
Joshua Jordan, a junior seeking a major in mathematics, was also experiencing frustration during half-time. He mentioned that they were not completely out of the game and he said that all they needed was once chance to get level with DePauw.
Justin Winterboer, a junior in management and sales played as the Spartan’s goal keeper for the whole duration. The cycle of frustration continued and he said that the talk the team had with the coaches during half-time was a good one and thought they were going to be able to pick it up. But despite their efforts and feelings of frustration, they fell to Kalamazoo 2-0, ending the weekend with back-to-back losses.
They finish this week heading to Warsaw, IN, today, Sept. 21, to face Grace College.