WCU ousted at home on penalty kicks

EAST BRADFORD » Getting knocked out of the PSAC Soccer Tournament on your home field is never going to feel good, but the West Chester men endured a truly devastating setback on Friday.

That’s because 90 minutes of regulation and a pair of 10-minute overtime periods failed to yield a goal, so the semifinal battle between the Golden Rams and East Stroudsburg was decided on a penalty shootout. And even though WCU had a chance to win it at the end of the best-of-five-kicks portion, it went on to lose it in the subsequent first round of sudden-death.

The record book will officially say that the clash was a 0-0 tie, but the visiting Warriors will advance to the finals thanks to a 5-4 edge in penalty kicks.

“I’m still proud of my guys and the fight they showed,” said dejected West Chester head coach Michael Benn. “We will find a way to bounce back.”

Ranked 16th nationally, the Rams fall to 13-2-1 overall, but are expected to receive a berth in the NCAA Division II Playoffs when the field of 38 is announced on Monday. The regular season conference champs, West Chester entered Friday number two in the latest NCAA Atlantic Region rankings.

“The boys will be feeling this for a couple days,” Benn said. “We will have to find a way to regroup, but this is a resilient group. It will hurt for a few days, as it should, and hopefully with the excitement of, hopefully, that NCAA announcement on Monday, they will be excited to keep playing.

“This goes down as a tie, so hopefully we’ve done enough to host an NCAA game.”

East Stroudsburg (13-3-1 overall and seeded fourth) moves on to Saturday’s title game at Rockwell Field at 1 p.m. and will be matched up against Gannon, who topped Millersville 2-0 in the other semifinal.

“It’s tough to end a PSAC Playoffs on PKs,” said WCU senior goaltender Matt Palmer. “You just have to trust your teammates, and I had faith in every single one of them who went up there to take a shot.

“We have each other to lean on, but we will get through this. We are excited about NCAAs, but nothing is guaranteed. We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves.”

Deadlocked 4-4 after the initial phase of PKs, ESU’s Eddy Enowbi slipped it past Palmer to start the sudden death phase. And the Warriors won it when West Chester freshman Stephen Thompson was stopped by East Stroudsburg keeper Steve Robak.

“Shootouts are a crapshoot,” Benn acknowledged. “You hope for the best and one team, unfortunately, has to walk away a loser. At that point as a coach, there is nothing you can do. You pick the guys you want to shoot and it’s up to them and the goalkeeper.

“I understand why we have to do it to finish a game – you can’t play forever – but it’s a tough way to not be able to advance and play for a championship.”

The shootout began with four consecutive goals by WCU upperclassmen Andrew Slater. Brett Glasco, Kyle Hoops and Colin Hester. And when Palmer denied the Warriors’ Keelby Espinola in round three, the Rams had an opening. But freshman Daniel Grimrod’s potential game-winner was thwarted by a diving Robak.

It’s worth noting that Robak relieved 5-foot-9 ESU starter Will Boerema for the penalty kicks largely due to his 6-foot frame. Ultimately the move worked.

Overall, it was an intense physical battle. In 100-plus of action, there were just five combined corner kicks generated by both sides, and West Chester had a slight edge in shots, 12-11.

“The defense carried us, as they have all season,” Benn said. “They pitched a shutout for 110 minutes – you can’t ask for much more than that, except try to find a goal.

“We just weren’t quite as hungry and as dangerous as we needed to be attackingwise. Credit some of that to East Stroudsburg, but we generated enough chances.”

Just in the final five minutes of regulation, each team had a prime scoring chance. The Warriors’ Lata Petros forced Palmer to make a diving save on one of his three second half stops, and WCU’s Doug Goitia had a header go over the crossbar with just 1:29 on the clock.

“We knew we were going to have to dig deep and we did,” Palmer said.

“The last few games we’ve played teams that were trying to get us into overtime so they could get something out of it,” added Glasco, a former high school standout at West Chester Rustin. “We are usually real good on offense, but teams have been focused almost solely on shutting us down.”

The Rams have now scored just six goals in the last six outings. The loss put a halt to WCU’s eight-game winning streak. West Chester topped East Stroudsburg 2-0 in the regular season meeting on Sept. 12th.

“It helps knowing our season isn’t over but, honestly, we were looking for our first PSAC championship, so this is tough to take,” Glasco said.