YANKTON, S.D. – Another first-half deficit entered into the circumstances faced by the Concordia University men’s soccer team in its latest outing within the GPAC. The Bulldogs regrouped by putting the final three goals of the game on the board in a 3-1 win at Mount Marty on a rare Tuesday afternoon (Oct. 16) affair. The match took place at National Field Archery Association Headquarters in Yankton, S.D.
Eleventh-year head coach Jason Weides’ squad is now 3-0-1 over its last four games and has improved to 8-4-2 overall and to 4-2-2 in the GPAC. With three games remaining in the regular season, Concordia still has a shot at a top-four league finish and the right to host a quarterfinal game in the GPAC tournament.
“The good news is that our team is more than one player, it’s more than 11 players,” Weides said. “We went into the bench early in the first half and asked some guys to help. Those guys made a difference. I was really pleased to see the impact of how those players off the bench helped us change things. Sometimes when things aren’t going well, you have to find some guys who can make that impact. I think that’s the name of the story today.”
The Bulldogs have conceded the game’s first goal now in six of their eight conference contests. Fortunately, Concordia has come back to win or tie in four of those instances. Tuesday became the latest example. Sophomore Joao Pedro Verissimo, who has battled injury of late, returned to the field and leveled the score, 1-1, on a penalty kick goal in the 44th minute.
The hope was that the Verissimo goal was about to open up the floodgates, but the next goal did not come until roughly 30 minutes later when junior Matthew Ho found the back of the net. To make for some breathing room, freshman Carlos Orquiz added the game’s final goal in the 84th minute. It had been a tight game on the scoreboard despite a final shot advantage of 31-14 for the Bulldogs. Roger de la Villa and Carlos Ferrer were both credited with assists.
To help make the victory possible, Caleb Goldsmith, Miguel Munoz and Kevin Sanchez also provided solid minutes off the bench. Their efforts were needed to overcome an improved Lancer squad that has been much more competitive in 2018. Mount Marty (2-7-2, 0-5-2 GPAC) entered the game having given up 27 goals over 10 games. It conceded 70 goals in 2017.
In some ways, Concordia is still trying to put everything together. Considering the team’s three-straight appearances in the GPAC tournament championship game, there’s still hope of peeking late this season.
“I think we’re still figuring ourselves out. We’ll get there,” Weides said. “The teams we have upcoming will be great challenges and teams that we’re battling with for position. At this point in the season we’re certainly disappointed in our standing. We really have the aspirations and the ability to be top two in the conference. We’ve had some opportunities where we dropped the ball. We can’t go backwards and change things. We’re not going to be exactly where we wanted to be come playoff time, but we can still position ourselves to succeed.”
The Bulldogs will have another journey up north this weekend when they play new GPAC member Jamestown (5-7-1, 4-4 GPAC) at 3:30 p.m. CT on Saturday. Concordia will leave Friday morning in preparation for the journey of more than eight hours.