The sixth-ranked Creighton men’s soccer team took a little while to figure out their opponent in Saturday night’s final exhibition game. Once they did, there was nothing the visiting Northwestern Wildcats could do to slow them down. Senior co-captain Vincent Keller scored twice, while junior All-American Fabian Herbers scored on a free kick and added a pair of assists as the Bluejays rolled to a 5-0 win in front of 1,811 fans at Morrison Stadium.
See Mike Spomer’s gallery from the match at photos.whiteandbluereview.com
Creighton head coach Elmar Bolowich was not happy with the team’s efficiency in front of goal in the their 3-0 exhibition win over Bradley last Tuesday. In that match, the Bluejays scored only three goals despite putting 13 of their 33 shots on frame. Saturday night was a different story as the team responded by banging home five goals against the Wildcats on their 19 shots, nine of which were on goal.
“Now we are talking about efficiency,” Bolowich said. “It was lacking against Bradley, so we definitely did better this time around.”
The Bluejays controlled possession from the opening kickoff, but had trouble generating scoring chances against Northwestern’s packed in formation. Midway through the first half they started using the entire width of the field to spread out the Wildcats and create some openings. The first goal came in the 19th minute when Herbers took a corner kick that was headed just outside the 18-yard box by a Northwestern defender. The ball found it’s way to Creighton freshman midfielder Joel Rydstrand, who fired a shot towards the goal. Sensing the shot was a bit off target, Vincent Keller redirected it with his back to the goal past Northwestern senior goalkeeper Zak Allen and into the net.
“I saw Joel taking the hit and I was actually facing away from the goal,” Keller said. “I knew the ball was going to go wide, and I was lucky enough to get the outside of my foot on the ball and try to redirect it towards the goal.”
Later, in the 28th minute, Herbers connected with Keller on a corner kick for the senior’s second goal of the match. This time Keller was facing the right direction and put a head on the ball to blast it by Allen, giving Creighton a 2-0 lead. Nearly four minutes later, Herbers bent a free kick just inside the left post to push the lead to 3-0 before halftime. That’s three goals in just over a ten minutes of action once they started stretching out the Wildcats.
“In the first 20 minutes we only played two-thirds of the field, width-wise, and we need to play the full 75 [yards],” Bolowich said. “We didn’t do that because our outside backs were too passive.”
“I just thought we weren’t smart when we approached the final third in getting the open looks. Northwestern did a good job in the get-go to keep spaces tight, and to make it difficult for us to find the gaps. In essence we figured out to bring the outside backs a little bit higher and stretch Northwestern out a little bit more.”
Junior midfielder Myles Englis put the icing on the cake with a goal in the 84th minute, but it was the combination play of Herbers, senior Timo Pitter, and sophomore Ricky Lopez-Espin that really showed how dangerous Creighton’s attack can be when it’s clicking. Herbers needed one touch to find Pitter, and Pitter needed one touch to find Lopez-Espin who curbed his run down the right side and fired a shot inside the near post for the fourth goal of the game in the 64th minute.
The match result may not have been in doubt prior to that sequence, but if the Bluejays are to reach their lofty potential this season it will more than likely need that trio to be in sync like they were on that play.
“We always keep finding the rhythm,” Herbers said. “If we have the rhythm you can see what we can do with the ball. Sometimes it’s hard to find the rhythm, but if we find it then we can work quickly with the ball.”
After all was said and done, Creighton was mostly pleased with their performance, specifically in how they responded after some constructive criticism followed a dominant, but not necessarily sharp outing against Bradley earlier in the week.
“Coach criticized the efficiency of the game against Bradley,” Herbers said. “We had 33 shots and scored only three goals, so I think we took the criticism from coach very well and tried to do a bit better this time. I think we could have had a couple more shots, though, but the efficiency was better at least.”
Creighton concludes the preseason with a pair of wins that saw them outscore the opposition 8-0. In fact, the only team to score against the Bluejays this month were the Bluejays themselves in their Blue/White scrimmage back on August 14th. Now they’ll turn their attention to improving as much as they can prior to their August 28th regular-season and home opener against the Michigan Wolverines.
The players have not been shy about what the expect to accomplish this season, and with that comes the reality that while they are in a good position at this stage of the process, there is still a lot that needs to be worked out in order to achieve their goals.
“The preseason always is really short here,” Keller said. “The trip to Germany definitely helped us just to work a little bit on our chemistry, team bonding, and those kinds of things. We’re on the right track. There are still things we need to work on as a team and individually, but I think as of right now we are on the good track.”
“It’s going to take a lot of work and focus for the rest of the season. That’s one thing that I’ve noticed over the last three or four years is that the season is long and you have to stay focused. Not only for the first ten games, but especially in the tournament you have to be sharp.”