Marquette University
1-0-2
Columbia
0-1-1
Marquette Completes Invitational Same As It Began
9/7/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
Sept. 7, 2008
MILWAUKEE - For the second time in three days, the Marquette men's soccer team played its opponent to a draw. During the same span, the Golden Eagles (1-0-2) neither scored a goal, nor let up a goal as they wrapped up play at the inaugural Marquette Invitational with a 0-0 non-decision Sunday against Columbia (0-1-1) at Valley Fields.
"Soccer is a strange game," said head coach Louis Bennett, whose squad battled Penn to the same 0-0 result Friday night. "Today we have good preparation, we're read to go and we just looked a little stressed, a little stretched out, a little un-cohesive. It took awhile to get our cohesiveness back. The plan was to play simple and to move the ball quickly, but we really couldn't find ourselves."
Marquette managed well despite the offbeat start. In the first half, MU took seven shots, five of which were on goal. Amilcar Herrera, Matt Stummer and Hector Navarro rattled off a flurry of strikes around the 40-minute mark, but a Lions defender was able to deflect each Marquette attempt away from the goal.
Stummer, who was named to the 10-member all-tournament team along with teammates Matt Pyzdrowski and Billy Von Rueden, recorded Marquette's first shot of the second half, which didn't come until 13 minutes in.
Marquette went on to control play the remainder of the day, although they were not as on target as in the first half. In all, the Golden Eagles generated nine of the last 12 shots seen in the match.
"I'm completely confident, because we're playing our best soccer in the last 20 minutes," said Bennett. "In the last 20 minutes, that's how I thought we could break Columbia down and we could stop them from doing what they do well."
With seconds remaining in the first overtime period, Monsen headed a corner kick wide of the goal. Navarro also had a beautiful cross in front of the goal, but his serve was barely out of reach of two MU attackers.
"The last 20 minutes we played some good football, I thought," said freshman defender Paul Monsen. "We worked hard and had some good touches at the end. We had some opportunities. I had one myself. But what can you do?"
Columbia tallied nine shots overall in the match. Pyzdrowski registered one save in posting his second shutout of the tournament, and in three games this season has progressively lowered his goals against average to 0.29.
Marquette has already tripled their opponents' shots on goal margin this season, owning a 21-7 advantage. The cumulative effort in three games has given the Golden Eagles some confidence heading into BIG EAST Conference play. MU travels to Notre Dame this Thursday, Sept. 11.
"We haven't lost, we're undefeated right now," said Stummer. "We might not have wanted the two ties. We'd like a win, but we've played pretty well, and even when we haven't played well, we haven't given up goals. We haven't made the big mistake that lets up a goal.
Penn took home the tournament trophy after posting a 1-0-1 record to begin its season. In Sunday's early match, the Quakers pieced together a 2-0 win over DePaul (1-2), which placed second ahead of Marquette in points. Columbia (0-1-1) finished fourth.
2008 Marquette Invitational All-Tournament Team
Matt Pyzdrowski, GK, Marquette
Steffen Vroom, D, DePaul
Ryan Porch, D, Penn
Bayo Adafin, F, Columbia
Tobi Olapede, F, Penn
Francois Anderson, MF, Columbia
Johnny Elicker, D, Penn
Matt Stummer, MF, Marquette
Willy Lara, MF, Depaul
John Kornfeld, MF, DePaul
Billy Von Rueden, D, Marquette
Team Finish
Penn (1-0-1), 4pts
DePaul (1-1-0), 3pts
Marquette (0-0-2), 2pts
Columbia (0-1-1), 1pt
