Clan slips by Grand Canyon and road trip continues
The road trip they felt they shouldn’t have had to make will happily continue for the Simon Fraser University Clan men’s soccer team.
Forced to give up the right to host the NCAA Division II regional playdowns because not all players on American schools had passports, the resilient Clan advanced to the Elite Eight by beating Grand Canyon University 2- 1 Thursday night at the Antelopes Phoenix- area campus.
SFU was seeded No. 1 in the West Region but had to host the first and second rounds last week in Hayward, Calif., before the NCAA then moved this week’s matches to Phoenix.
The Clan will face the University of Incarnate Word from San Antonio, Texas, on Saturday at GCU’s grass field. The winner moves on to the Final Four ( Nov. 29- Dec. 1) in Evans, Ga.
Striker Carlo Basso headed in the winning goal in the 86th minute off a perfectly placed cross from Chris Bargholz as the Great Northwest Athletic Conference champions moved closer to becoming the first non- U. S. school to win an NCAA title.
It was the team- leading 13th goal of the season for Basso, a 6- 4 junior from Coquitlam.
“Fantastic cross from Bargholz and Carlo does what he does best, he buried it,” said SFU head coach Alan Koch.
Senior defender Matt Besuschko opened the scoring for the Clan in the 42nd minute off a set- up from Juan Sanchez.
SFU dominated for large stretches of the match, but the Antelopes tied the score in the 66th minute when sensational Jamaican Saeed Robinson converted a penalty kick after Clan goalkeeper J. D. Blakely was yellow- carded for taking down a player in the box.
“The first half, we played very, very well, exactly how we needed to play,” said Koch. “We should have been up by a few goals.
“Then we took our foot off the pedal in the second half, weathered a bit of a storm, then had a moment of brilliance and we prevailed.”
Koch said Incarnate Word, which used to be in the NAIA with the Clan and is moving to NCAA Division I next year, is “a high- calibre team, very organized and have a couple of special individual players. We’ll put together a plan tomorrow and go from there.”