The Creighton men’s soccer team may have entered Wednesday night’s home finale at Morrison Stadium as the nation’s only unbeaten and untied team, but that hardly meant they were untested. Four times previously the Bluejays had entered the 80th minute with the match still in doubt. And in each of those four instances they eventually found the game-winning goal, or goals — in the case of their late onslaught at Seton Hall. On Wednesday night, though, the Xavier Musketeers denied them a chance to make that a perfect five-for-five.
Sophomore forward Matt Vasquenza stunned the Bluejays and their home crowd of 3,061 fans when he beat Creighton senior goalkeeper Connor Sparrow with 1:13 remaining in the second half to give the Musketeers a 2-1 lead that they had little trouble hanging on to. Vasquenza’s goal was his fourth score of the season, and it dropped Creighton to 15-1-0 on the season and 6-1-0 in Big East play.
“Something like that can always happen. They were ready for us. They were very disciplined. They brought a lot of energy, and they took advantage of their opportunities,” Creighton head coach Elmar Bolowich said. “In the last minute we had a total blackout defensively, and that decided the game. We were planning for overtime to change up our lineup and give them hell, but we never reached that point.”
The Musketeers outshot previously unbeaten Bluejays, 13-10, in the second half, and held a 6-0 edge in corner kicks over the final 45 minutes of play on the Morrison Stadium pitch. The loss was Creighton’s first at home since October 25 of last year when they fell to #17 Georgetown, 1-0. They had won 14 home matches in a row entering the contest against Xavier.
“We just weren’t set defensively,” Bolowich said. “We allowed the counter — I felt like all game long they were stronger in the midfield than we were. They had a stronger presence in the midfield than we had. What that means is we had a hard time getting into our comfortable playing rhythm. Then of course, them being strong in the midfield, winning balls off of us, it allowed them to initiate their counter attacks, which is something they were looking for. That’s where the two goals came from. They had another couple of opportunities when we opened up a little bit and tried to force the issue, they were looking for the counter. They knew what they were doing. It was a very well-coached, well-disciplined team, and they gave a total team effort tonight, and you can’t say that they didn’t deserve to win today.”
Xavier drew first blood in the 14th minute when junior midfielder Majed Osman played a ball across the box that found sophomore midfielder Josh Grant running in on the far right post. With the ball still in the flight, Grant headed it into the back of the net to give the Musketeers a 1-0 lead.
That lead held for most of the opening half until Creighton sophomore midfielder Lucas Stauffer found the equalizer in the 35th minute. The play was set up by Hermann Trophy candidate Fabian Herbers, who drew two defenders along the left flank before playing the ball to Stauffer. From about 20 yards out, Stauffer fired a rocket past Xavier senior goalkeeper Dallas Jaye and into the far side of the net to send the Bluejays and Musketeers into the locker room tied at 1.
In the second half, Jaye and Sparrow each made multiple brilliant saves to keep the match tied and give their attacking players a chance to bang home the game-winner, but it was Creighton’s defense that ended up blinking first just before the end of regulation.
“I think we just got turned in the back and allowed them to come inside, and then get the shot off,” Bolowich said of the sequence that led to Matt Vasquenza’s game-winning goal. “Normally we always press to the flank, and you don’t ever want to allow a player to cut inside. That was a mistake that was made, and caught our defender a little bit off balance, and they took advantage of it.”
There is some thought that it does team’s of immense talent good to drop a game or a match right before the postseason in order to re-light the fire. Regardless of whether or not that theory has any merit, the Bluejays are now in a position they haven’t experienced so far in 2015 — regrouping after a loss.
“You learn from every game, win or lose,” Bolowich said. “You want to take the messages from this game, and what happened here, and just move on and become better again. We need to be prepared. Tonight we were struggling in some parts of the game, and then in other parts we had our rhythm, we had our opportunities, and we were just a little bit unlucky and didn’t capitalize on them.”
“We want to see a reaction from the team now. Hopefully it’s a good wake-up call in the sense that now we are going on the road to win two games, and win the league.”
The Creighton head coach is of course referring to the final two matches of the regular season, at Providence (7-5-2, 3-3-1) on Saturday at 6:00 p.m. (CST), and at 7th-ranked Georgetown (11-2-2, 7-0-0) at 1:00 p.m. (CST) on Thursday, November 5. Right now the Bluejays trail the Hoyas by a half game in the Big East regular season standings. A victory over the Friars on Saturday will set up a winner-take-all scenario in Washington, D.C. on November 5 with Creighton and Georgetown battling for the Big East regular-season crown, something the Bluejays added to their trophy case a year ago.
Listen to postgame audio from head coach Elmar Bolowich: