Flat. Lethargic. Slow. Those were the words that came to mind when Johnny Torres replayed the first 45 minutes of his team’s 1-0 loss at Seton Hall on Friday night.
The Pirates (4-4-0, 2-1-0 Big East) produced a 4-1 edge in shots over the first 30-plus minutes of action before senior forward Carlton McKenzie made an incredible play on a ball over the top of to score his first goal of the season and give his team the lead with 12:33 remaining in the first half.
Seton Hall freshman midfielder James Boote started the play with a rainbow flick over the top of Creighton’s back line and into the 18. As the ball came down, McKenzie, who had just checked into the match four minutes and nine seconds prior, lifted his right thigh to keep the ball in the air, then struck it with his head over the reach of Bluejay goalkeeper Collin Valdivia.
“We just weren’t focused in the first half,” Torres said.
McKenzie’s seemed to snap Torres’ club out of its funk as Creighton out-shot Seton Hall, 4-0, the rest of the first half, and then carried it over by building a 7-2 advantage in shots in the second.
“I don’t think there was really a tactical change, it was just more of a mindset,” Torres said of his team’s sudden surge of aggression. “In the first half we were a little bit conservative. Seton Hall was giving us some time and space on the ball in our back third, and I think sometimes players misconstrue that. They think if you have time and space it means you’ve got to play slow, and I disagree with that. I think even if you have time and space, your tempo can still be crisp, and you can still play at a nice click.”
Despite the sense of urgency, all Creighton had to show for it at the end of the day were some near-misses by Kuba Polat and Daniel Espeleta, and some chipped paint off the cross bar by Luke Haakenson and Diego Dutilh.
“Ultimately we ran out of time because we didn’t decide to start playing until the second half,” Torres said. “[Seton Hall] did a very good job to stay compact and stay tight. They defended like hell — they were disciplined, they were gritty, they were tough, and unfortunately we weren’t able to convert on our chances.”
With the loss, Creighton snaps a four-match winning streak and falls to 6-3-1 overall on the season. They currently sit in a tie with Seton Hall for third place in the Big East standings, one point behind 5th-ranked Georgetown and three points back of 12th-ranked St. John’s.
“You want to make sure you use every opportunity as a learning experience, and we go away from this game knowing how much it hurts to drop three points at Seton Hall,” Torres said. “We’ll look for some learning points from it, we’ll reconvene on Sunday and look over some video so we can learn from our mistakes and move forward.”
They’ll certainly have plenty of time to learn that lesson as they don’t return to the pitch for another week when they travel to Xavier for a 6:00 p.m. match on Friday, October 11.
