Steven Petrov
The Paw Print
The surprising loss for the ASU’s men soccer team, who played CSU Pueblo at home on Sunday October 20th, dropped the “Grizzlies” down to the 7th place in the current RMAC standings. The Adams State men’s soccer team has been going through a tough time in the last 2 weeks, during which they dropped from the 4th place of the RMAC standings after 3 consecutive losses. The “Grizzlies are now entering into a direct competition with Fort Lewis and UCCS, for the 5th and 6th place in the conference, which gives them the opportunity to play in the RMAC tournament. Both of these teams are in front of ASU at the moment, 5th and 6th respectively. However, there are 4 more games left until the end of the regular season, and the “Grizzlies” are having 2 of them at home, which can definitely bring up changes in the RMAC standings at the end.
The game played on the ASU soccer field, Sunday started well for the “Grizzlies” who created some dangerous goal scoring opportunities during the first half. In the 11th minute the sophomore forward, Cody Weisenburger got at the end of a through ball from ASU’s midfield, passed the CSU Pueblo’s goalkeeper, pushing the ball outside to the right of the goal, but his shot didn’t find the target and went wide. The green team had another good opportunity 4 minutes later, when Weisenberger was fouled at the edge of the 18-yard box, after he was able to control the ball and turn to go for goal. There were speculations that the CSU Pueblo’s defender deserved at least a yellow if not a red card, because he was the last man in the “Thunderwolves” defense, and his foul stopped the forward from facing the goalie one on one. However, only a free kick was given, and the senior midfielder, Fabian Omana Marin, took the shot. Similarly to the free kick that Omana, took against Regis University on Friday, when he hit the crossbar, the midfielder shot the ball almost perfectly, and the goalie didn’t even react. Unfortunately for the “Grizzlies” the ball hit the bottom part of the crossbar, and didn’t go in. The “Thunderwolves” created some good attacks throughout the first half, showing that they are dangerous on the attack, but they were not well organized defensively, which created a lot of gaps in their defense and gave ASU’s players a lot of time on the ball. One of the most creative players on the ball for CSUPUE was #18 Rene Chacon was “dangerous” on the left side of the attack. In the 31st minute CSU Pueblo made a substitution, which, would turned out to be the difference in the game. The CSU’s midfielder Ashton Carlson came on as a substitution for T.J. Thiebaut. In the 41st minute Carlson scored an exceptional goal, from the right side of the CSUPUE’s attack, after shooting the ball with the outside of his foot placing it in the top right corner of the goal guarded by Jared Wilson.
The second half brought a lot of frustration for the “Grizzlies”, due to their inability to get an equalizer. The players lost their focus and were not performing up to their capabilities, which made coach Busen frustrated as well. Even though he made a lot of substitutions in order to keep his players fresh and more effective, the green team missed some opportunities and was unable to come back. After outshooting their opponent with 18 to 12, only to lose at the end, was extremely frustrating for Coach Busen’s really talented and ambitious team, which brought some major upsets this season (0:1 win against Fort Lewis; 0:1 win against CSMU). The “Grizzlies” need at least 3 wins in their last 4 games in order to get into the tournament, so we will see if the team will be able to bounce back from this loss.
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