WUSTL Soccer: ECCC/SLU Game Reports

By: Paul Neumann

On a perfectly lovely spring night in St. Louis on SLU's equally lovely grass field your Bears played a double header. The first game featured the Warriors of East Central Community College (Decatur) as the competition. There were no refs so players called their own fouls and directions on throw ins which worked very well for the most part.

The Bears opened in their standard 4-4-2 with Andrew Serio in goal and controlled the flow of play early. We had a quick shot in the second minute by Kevin Privalle off a feed from Joey Glass that went high. We continued to dominate the middle of the field as Peter Jebson and Chris Weinstein won a lot of balls. Joey and Kevin were active up front and played well off each other but we failed to score until about 20 minutes in when Kevin centered a ball from the right that Joey controlled about 12 yards out and took one touch and then beat the keeper with a well placed shot.   The Warriors countered with their first significant offensive foray of the half with a push down the center and a shot that was blocked by Andrew Serio and picked up by a player (clearly in an offside position according to a number of well positioned spectators) who scored from three yards out.
After 30 minutes the first half concluded with a 1-1 tie. Michael Rao opened in goal in the second half. The Bears continued to control the play. We had numerous chances down both wings with Dylan Roman on the right side and Chris Weinstein making a number of runs and putting balls into the middle. About 20 minutes in Kevin made a nice run onto a thru ball and was open at the 18 and shot past an onrushing goalie but went just wide of the right post. The ECCC team was tiring (numerous kids cramped up ) but had a couple of good runs only to be thwarted by a very heavy touches by their winger to give up the ball to the goalie without actually getting a shot on goal.   the Bears had a number of chances in the last 10 minutes and finally, with a minute remaining, Cody Costakis (transfer from Bucknell) had a nice corner which was headed on goal by Harry Beddo. the goalie could only block the shot and John Hengel was there to put in the game winner as time ran out.

After a short water break the second game against SLU came on. I am short on chronology here because there was no running clock so some general comments that maybe Mike Hendrickson who came in from LA for the game can add on to. A well played game also without refs. They played two 40 minute halves. Generally SLU was the better team with 60-40 possession and more runs into the box. They were very fast (an order of magnitude faster than anyone we played in the fall) and connected well on cross field balls and long passes. We did a good job of holding our shape, never broke down on defense, were able to often double the ball (had the guy doubled on SLU's second goal but #26 for SLU was fast enough to go by two people in 20 yards get to the end line and cross for the header).    Randy and Dave Klein played the wing defenders almost the whole game until they were subbed late. Nat, Harry and Alex rotated between the two center defenders and one of the center mids. John Hengel, Pat McLean, Cody, Chris Weinstein and Peter Jebson shared time at the other center mid spot and Pat, John, John Duncan and Kevin Privalle late played up top. Zach and Cody opened on the wings and looked good both on offense and help on defense.    Zach had a number of plays where he beat his man to the inside at about 40 yards out but we were unable to convert them into good offense. John Duncan and Chris Weinstein and Joey Glass spelled them in the second half.
The teams played two forty minute halves. SLU scored after about twenty minutes on a fluke goal from a soft chip from 10 yards that deflected off Nat's chest and went about 15 yards up and came down into the right corner of the net for the score. We had a couple of chances in the first half with John Duncan going over goal early and one on a defensive miscue in the box where Pat stole the ball but could not get a clean shot on goal. The half ended 1-0 and after five minutes for water they resumed.

Their second goal was absolutely legit and came as one of about 10 attacks down Randy's side that were relentless in the second half. We defended them well overall with Smelcer pulling down a couple of balls but generally allowed very few shots on goal.   Our central defenders headed out a number of crosses and controlled others that they played up to the mid field to bring it out of our end. Smelcer snuffed out one opportunity memorably as he snatched a ball that was crossed from about six yards wide in a great reaction save. We had a couple of chances late with one run by Chris Weinstein into the box, another off a pass wide to John Duncan at about the 18,a run by Pat, and with about 5 minutes left Kevin bumping a SLU player off the ball and carrying it into the box but going wide with the shot.   We did not get off really good quality shots as their defenders closed very well. SLU was more physical and probably benefited a bit from no refs (one sequence had the SLU player fouling Pat, Pat fouling him back to take back the ball and the SLU player falling down (probably from embarrassment) and claiming a foul) but we could have probably gone harder to some of the balls.   Andrew Serio played about the last 15 minutes in goal.   Kudos to John Duncan (subbing for Randy who had a cramp) for a defensive clearance late even as he was being pulled down from behind.

A fun game to watch and I think the players had a good time playing in it. Everyone seemed positive after the game and the conditioning and practice they had put in over the last few months showed to good effect. As Joe said afterwards, if we could play about 35 games like that it would really benefit our team.    Hopefully everyone puts in the same kind of effort over the next few months.