Younes Boudadi started things in motion for Creighton’s first goal of the night (Spomer / WBR) $CLICK TO BUY$
Creighton’s first true litmus test after a preseason of saying and doing the right things came on Friday night, and the Bluejays passed with flying colors. In front of 5,473 fans at Morrison Stadium — the sixth-largest crowd in school history — the Jays applied relentless pressure on 11th-ranked Clemson’s leading to a pair goals late in the first half en route to a 2-0 season-opening win.
“The first ten minutes we tried to find ourselves and were maybe a little bit too hesitant trying to figure things out,” Creighton head coach Elmar Bolowich said. “Once we settled down and started playing I think we were well in control for the rest of the first half and scored some nice goals that gave us a good cushion.”
The Tigers physicality dictated much of the action early in the first half, but once Creighton flipped the field and started stringing passes together the game flipped and never swung back in Clemson’s favor. After generating an 8-2 edge in shots the Bluejays broke through in the 37th minute on newcomer Ziyad Fares’ first career Divison-1 goal. The sequence started when junior midfielder Tor Trosten played a ball in behind the back line to Fares, who fired a shot off the far post by Clemson goalkeeper Jonny Sutherland. A Clemson defender frantically cleared the loose ball off the end line, but the Bluejays immediately won the ball back. Seconds later junior right back Younes Boudadi played a ball to senior Akeem Ward on the left flank. Ward crossed it back into the box on his first touch and Fares got on the end of it and chipped it in to give the Bluejays a 1-0 lead. It was pure chaos from Clemson’s back line against Creighton’s creativity, and Fares was the benefactor.
“Man, it was a crazy sequence,” the transfer from Yavapai College said. “It was all the guys’ work, it wasn’t me. I just had an easy five-yard tap in. The team won that ball back. It was great. It was special to score my first goal in this atmosphere — it’s amazing. I’ve never played in front of a crowd this big.”
Joel Rydstrand was on point for getting things going on the second goal of the evening (Spomer / WBR) $CLICK TO BUY$
The second strike came not even five minutes later when senior captain Joel Rydstrand played a ball from midfield to Ward on the sideline. The winger won a 1v1 against a Clemson defender and flicked a ball into the box and senior forward Anthony Macchione timed a near-post run perfectly to redirect the cross into the back of the net for a 2-0 lead in the 42nd minute.
The Jays had to withstand an early push from Clemson, but once both teams settled into the action, Creighton’s tempo took over and the Tigers looked a step or two slow, and it was evident on both sequences that led to the goals.
“Coach talked to us about the first 15 minutes,” Ward said. “We knew that they were going to be physical. We knew they were going to come out hard, so it was all about weathering that storm, weathering that first 15 minutes, and seeing if they could keep that level throughout the first 45. We saw through probably the first 20-25 minutes that they couldn’t, and then we started pressing their center-mid and they started getting more and more tired. The physicality kind of dropped off … and that’s when we capitalized on the opportunities.”
Due to the quality of depth Creighton displayed throughout the preseason, and again on Friday night, this appears to be the blueprint for success as they look to bounce back from a disappointing season in 2017. One that the coaches and players seem to have a lot of faith in up to this point.
“Our team is now set up for it,” Bolowich said of the team-oriented style and pace. “The high press always comes from the front runners and that’s where we make the most substitutions, so now we have the fresh legs and we don’t miss a beat when we do go for 45 minutes. That workload is shared with three or four players that have to come off the bench like in the first half, but when we put those guys in we immediately scored and then scored another one. That’s how you break teams down, because then you keep your tempo up, you keep your momentum up, and it’s very difficult for another team to stay focused for 90 minutes when another group is constantly coming at you.”
Creighton will look to improve on it’s 1-0-0 mark in 2018 when it returns to the pitch at Morrison Stadium for a match against UC Davis on Sunday night at 7:00 p.m.
More postgame reaction thanks to Creighton Athletics.
Tweets of the Game
Here are some fun tweets from the game you might have missed.