The Bluejays left it all out on the field in this top 10 matchup (Spomer / WBR) CLICK TO BUY
For the majority of the first 104 minutes and change, the 8th-ranked Creighton men’s soccer team looked like the stronger side in their highly-anticipated non-conference matchup with unbeaten Denver. However, a miss-touch in front of their own goal allowed the 5th-ranked Pioneers to get a clean look and freshman midfielder Stefan DeLeone put it away in the 105th minute for the 1-0 win at Morrison Stadium on Tuesday night.
Before DeLeone’s golden goal, the Bluejays had compiled a 25-7 edge in shots, including a 20-3 advantage after halftime, but they were unable to put any of them into the net against a wall of Denver defenders in front of redshirt sophomore goalkeeper Will Palmquist, who was making his first start of the season.
“In the second half, we started to move ball a lot faster and we reeled off shot after shot,” Creighton head coach Elmar Bolowich said. “The shots weren’t of top quality, but nevertheless we were looking for the opportunities. I thought we were well in control of the game, but Denver is just exactly that team that is just patient. They hang in there. They don’t care if you have 30 or 40 shots against them as long as they keep a clean sheet. They are just waiting for their one opportunity to pounce on you, and we gave it to them. That was the difference.”
That opportunity came in the blink of an eye for the Pioneers. Creighton had appeared to snuff out an attack when senior winger Akeem Ward played a ball to senior captain Mitch LaGro in the box. With no attacker in front of him, LaGro attempted to clear the ball, but his plant foot accidentally pushed the ball out too far and he missed the clearance with his right on the follow-through. That allowed DeLeone to pick it off, take a touch, and slot it inside the near post for the game-winning goal with 5:20 left on the clock in the second overtime period.
As DeLeone pulled off his shirt and sprinted toward his teammates, LaGro and several other Creighton players collapsed to the pitch with their head buried in their hands. After 104-plus minutes of nearly flawless defense against the nation’s leading goal scorer Andre Shinyashiki and the unbeaten Pioneers, all they had to show for it was their first loss at Morrison Stadium since last year’s 2-0 defeat in the season-0pener against No. 17 Virginia Tech. Despite the crushing defeat on Tuesday night, Creighton’s coach wasn’t laying it all on that one mistake at the end of the match.
“That’s probably the toughest way to lose one,” Bolowich said. “But we didn’t lose just because we made one mistake. Obviously it was a deciding factor at the end of the game, but we lost in the 90 minutes of not scoring goals ourselves. You’re setting yourself up. You just do that when you don’t score goals, on your home field on top of that.”
The Bluejays had their chances throughout the match and nearly ended it as the first overtime period was winding down, but Palmquist stood on his head to send it to the second overtime, and Denver’s defense kept numbers back throughout the match to make it difficult for Creighton to find many openings in the final third.
“They defended with 10 guys,” Bolowich said. “They had [Shinyashiki] just hanging out even when they were in their own half. The rest of the other guys were just defending their tails off. They lined up at times six across in the back and had three or four in front, and so whenever you brought the ball wide there were already two or three defensive players there. You really couldn’t outplay them at that moment, because at best we had even numbers. Normally you try to create a superiority with numbers and play your ball movement on one side or the other, but they were well prepared for that.”
The loss snapped the Jays’ 14-match unbeaten streak at Morrison Stadium and dropped them to 7-2-1 on the season. Despite a 52-13 edge in shots over the last 213 minutes, Creighton is getting outscored 2-1 over that stretch. While that’s concerning to Creighton’s 8th-year head coach, it’s not a reason to press the reset button.
“We can’t start second guessing now what we are doing,” Bolowich said. “What we are doing is we are backing teams off, but they are scouting us too. They know that we are pressing high. They know that we are coming. They know we are bringing numbers around the ball. So naturally, they are in more of a defensive position. We all know destroying is much easier than creating. When you are in a defensive position, you may have the luck to get through with just being disciplined, disrupting plays, blocking shots, and sticking your foot in — things like that — versus us having to find the small seams, to time the runs accurately, to get the shots on target. That’s much, much more of a challenge, but we just have to get better at it.”
Creighton’s next chance to get better at it will be on Saturday, October 6 when they hit the road to take on the St. John’s team that ended their season last year in the first round of the Big East Tournament. Kickoff for the Jays and Johnnies is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. at Belson Stadium in Queens, New York.