Billikens role on with their 7th straight win and fifth straight shutout. Final score 2-0. Goals by Pusateri and Jewsbury. Pusateri scored in the first fifteen. He received the ball on the left side, inside Fumans half. Furman gave him too much room for a run diagonally at the goal. Pusateri took advantage of it by using his speed and some great feints to bury a shot from just within the eighteen. Second goal also came inthe second half. Danny Wynn took the ball to the top of Furman's eighteen and unleashed a rifle of a shot which was deflected by a defender. The ball banged off the crossbar to the right side of the goal about 6 yds off the right post. Jewsbury was there, but instead of banging the dropping ball he let it bounce once, caught everyone off guard and slammed in a shot. Nice composure by Jackie. The sweetest no goal had to have been Cooper McKee individual effort as he shielded the ball in the eighteen from a defender, completley faked the guy out, squared to the goal and blasted a shot the goalie just barely got to. Such a sweet sequence. The second half was definetly Furman's though. Their attack is an "in your face attack." They don't play with the ball much in the back like SLU. Their forwards all had excellent ball skills and were very wily out there. They had one excellent opportunity but Hutton made a diving save to preserve the shutout. SLU did have some great opportunities but they seemed to be playing more of a counter-attack offense. I guess this win confirms that SLU is back from the doldrums of its 0-2-1 start. Their confidence is soaring and the teamwork out there is outstanding. Plus even with a Cardinals game at Busch and a Mizzou game against Oklahoma, SLU still had 3600 at the match.
Thanks for the report, kami. The Paladins have struggled with giving up early goals, but the fight back usually ends with a win... (for Furman). According to the box score, Furman only had 3 shots on goal, and none of them from forwards. Does anyone have any feedback on what was going on with the Paladin attack? And who were the defenders at fault on the Pusateri and McKee incidents kami mentioned? Thanks-- King Eric
Oh Doctor the Billikens toyed with the Palladins from Furman! The score in this match should have been 5-0 SLU and could have been worse. From the opening whistle SLU took charge and controlled the ball owning possession for minutes at a time and once Furman would break up the Billiken possesion SLU would win the ball back directly. I do not recall Furman putting together more than 3 or 4 passes the entire first half of action. Furmans first significant possesion didn't come untill 15 minutes of play had elapsed and resulted in a nice pas into the SLU box that was shanked high and wide by Clint Dempsey. On the SLU first goal Andy Pusateri collected a ball out wide and swivelhipped the first Furman challenge and then carried the ball 30 yards on a diagonal run toward the Furman net. The Furman defenders all kept collapsing inward toward their goal until Pusateri arrived just outside the penalty area and Pusateri wound up to fire a rightfooted shot and a defender came out to challenge the shot and Pusateri cut it backto his left foot and then stepped around another defender to his right and came in on goal and Toe-Poked a shot into the lower right hand corner to the Furman keepers left. A really pretty goal. The Furman Keeper Hanley robbed Cooper McKee in the 8th minute of play after McKee went through 2 Furman defenders making them look silly and broke across the goal mouth all alone inside the six yard box and Hanley stopped McKee's effort with a diving sprawling save on a shot headed for the upper far right corner. A big time save. Hanley made another big save by diving to tip over the cross bar a long range shot from 30+ yards out from Kevin Wickart. Jack Jewsbury buried a goal in the 30th minute after a shot by Danny Wynn clanged off the cross bar and bounced off the bar high into the air. Jewsbury was in position as the ball was coming down about 10 yards out from goal and Jewsbury faked the 1 time volley shot with his right foot and deftly cut the ball back across his body from right to his left foot and buried the ball past Hanley into the low far right corner of the net! (sorry kami but Jack did not let the ball bounce he cut it back as he settled the ball off the rebound from the crossbar) A goal of beauty. SLU has several other golden chances to pad their first have lead and completely outclassed the young Furman team. The second half continued with SLU having the much more dangerous opportunities with Furman defenders blocking shots and breaking up plays at the last instant. SLU forward Jason Cole beat the Keeper to a cross and nodded a header off the goal post that Furman cleared away. Hanley made a couple of other really nice saves to keep the scoreline respectable. SLU got behind the Furman defense time and time again throughout the first half and several times in the second half. I had heard so much about the young Furman guns like, Chefik Simo, who was a complete non factor and barley touched the ball and to my eyes played with zero heart and intensity and appeared down right lazy and disinterested.. Josh Villalobos, whose only contributions were a couple of cheapshots a yellow card and numerous lost balls to the SLU defenders who picked him clean. Gray Griffin, A real smooth defender whom played tough and inspired defense all game long but he was often made to look young and inexperienced by the SLU attackers. Griffin also struggled mightily with his distribution in this match. Anthony Esquival, Worked hard in defense and trying to win the ball but never got a sniff at goal. Sergie Raad, The most effective forward for Furman in this game with some real strong on the ball running and some hard nosed play. Clint Dempsey, Wow this kid has energy to burn and most of the Furman possesion was eaten up by Dempsey running here and there, to and fro, zigging and zagging with the bal all the while going no where fast. I will give him credit he never quit and you call tell he is a gifted player. Andy Kidd, Played a solid defensive game. McNeil Cronin, Very quiet with a couple flashes of brilliance on the ball. Kenneth Penn, came on for defender Matt Foxhall after Foxhall proved he could not man mark Jason Cole worth a darn. Penn played real well and helped contain the always dangerous Jason Cole who had about 5 shots in the match. Scott Hoch, A non factor. John Hanley, Kept this match from being a blowout and was the Furman man of the match. Here is a link to the SLU website highlighting the game, http://slubillikens.ocsn.com/sports/m-soccer/recaps/100502aaa.html
Ok, so I used the wrong word: bounced. Sue me. The fact is Jewsbury had everyone thinking he was gonna slam that ball coming down, but he instead (using your word now) settled it and then shot it. Anyway, tom, what do you think of the transfer from UNC-Char, Tsambo? He came in as a sub for McKee in the second half. Personally I think he's too slow to play up front and thought they should have put in someone like Ryan Wileman. Wileman came in against EI last Wednesday and looked pretty good. He had one pretty hard shot from outside the eighteen. Any word on your boy Walls? Wasn't sure what happened but he was clutching his side in pain. Also, didn't the short shrimp on Furman get two yellows? Isn't that an automatic red? Air Force is coming up...............They lost 2 nil to Indiana, beat SMS 2-1. Currently they're 5-4-1. I smell a slaughter.
Thanks for the details, soccertom-- Sorry to hear the report on some of our Paladins... we're gonna need to shape up in certain areas... How did Ricardo Clark and Drew Moor (Fr. def #13) play? My guess is Ricardo did a respectable job of holding the ball in midfield, but rarely came up with any effective passes. Moor has been very tough, so I wonder if he struggled like it seems several others did. Any comment? Thanks-- King Eric
Actually I meant to comment on these 2 Furman players in my earlier post. Ricardo Clark, played a whale of a game for Furman and was an absolutely tireless worker in the midfield. Clark was the most effective field player for Furman. Ricardo was one of the few who effectively won and held possession and found open teamates with his passing. Ricardo was always involved defensively but flat ran out of gas around the 70th minute mark and went out for a sub but came back into the match after a 10 minute rest. Drew Moor, Played well and was more effective than the 2 other higher profile midfielders Simo and Villalobos. Moor made good decisions on the ball and also had a couple of nice runs in the match. I think it was Moor that was initially beat on the first SLU goal.
Re: SLU 5 consecutive shutouts and he is making all the routine saves as well as the occasional big save when called upon to do so. Hutton is distributing the ball well and is also a vocal leader from the back.
soccertom, did Moor play mid for Furman, or back? Also, seems like SLU is really clicking since Jewsbury was moved into midfield.
Moor Started the match as a back but played some in the midfield. Jewsbury moving from striker to Attacking-Mid was a part of a mass reconfiguring of the SLU line-up after the 3rd game of the season. You can go here to learn more about the juggling of the SLU line-up that has run off 7 consecutive wins and 5 straight shutouts. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=15971
SLU will be without Hammes and Walls against Air Force. I don't think it will matter, but still would like to see Hammes out there at least. From SLU website: No Ordinary Joe: Senior midfielder Joe Hammes (Cedarburg, Wis. / Marquette) will miss the Air Force game for reaching the five-caution limit ... notched the first two-goal game of his career with a pair against UAB and was named to College Soccer News national Team of the Week. Just Another Brick in the Wall: Senior forward Nick Walls (Milwaukee, Wis. / Wauwatosa East) had to leave the Furman game with a hip injury ... scored an insurance goal vs. Eastern Illinois.
I hope your right kami. I tend to agree with you that we should be able to get by Air Force without these 2 players but you never know. Both Hammes and Walls are intregal parts of the SLU line-up. It doesn't specifically say Walls will miss the game but from the way he was limping his injury seemed to be significant. I remember Walls crashed into Clint Dempsey with a cross body block foul along the sideline and Walls got up from that collision rubbing his hip. Shortly after that is when Walls went down and out of the Furman game. I think he has a hip-pointer.
Only reason I think Walls will be out is a) its Air Force, b) Walls has been injury prone throughout his career at SLU, c) Air Force is not a conference game and d) the remaining games are all conference games where we would definetly need Walls. Also, some interesting news concerning Creighton. I guess they are not too happy with the MVC conference. Hmmm...since C-USA is too big, a new conference with Creighton and SLU in it would be very interesting. Article copied below: Schlegel wants out of the Mo. Valley Conference By Nic A. Prenger To sum up the annual Fireside Chat: the Christmas tree stays, the statue of Billy the Bluejay goes and the athletic teams might be moving. During the Chat, Creighton’s president, the Rev. John P. Schlegel, S.J., said he would like to see the university’s athletic teams move out of the Missouri Valley Athletic Conference. When a student posed the question of whether Creighton was looking to move its athletic teams to a new conference, Schlegel took a long pause before slowly saying, “I have no comment on that.” He then went on to add, “I know that the Missouri Valley Conference is certainly not the conference I would like to see Creighton in.” Schlegel did not elaborate on why he would like to see Creighton switch conferences. The event, held Wednesday night in the Skutt Student Center, was designed to give students an open forum with both Schlegel and Mike Potthoff, president of the Creighton Students Union. There were fewer than 20 people in attendance – over half of whom were CSU members.
There's been a good bit of talk recently among midwest basketball driven programs forming a separate conference, or affiliating with the Big East as a western division. This includes a number of catholic and/or private schools with major b'ball (and no football) programs such as St. Louis, Xavier, Creighton, Dayton, Butler, Detroit, Marquette and several others. It would make for an interesting soccer league.
I've heard the same things posted around on the Billiken B-Ball board. Most seem to favor it as they seem to think the C-USA has moved from its mandate to be a basketball conference to becoming a football conference. Plus the conference is too big (14 teams?).
Not only is the conference too big, but travel is a killer. Ditto the A-10 for teams like Xavier and Dayton. I think this is going to happen in the next couple of years.