Suffolk\u2019s men\u2019s soccer team played one of their most important games of the season Oct. 17 against defending conference champions Roger Williams University. Suffolk and RWU, the top two teams in the Conference of New England, played an exciting, albeit goalless, match on a chilly afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Suffolk started off a bit messy. The Rams had trouble passing the ball down the field making offensive chances rare, but started to grow into the game around 15 minutes in. Suffolk had managed three shots on target, but the RWU\u2019s goalie saved them with ease. Within two minutes, both teams were given a free kick but neither were successful.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tension was rising with every minute. Suffolk showed its fiery temper when two players of RWU were kicked down to the ground. Neither action was punished with a yellow card but the referee watched closely for any other mishap that would follow soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thirty minutes in and tragedy almost struck \u4e00 during a free kick a Suffolk player accidentally headed the ball in its own net. But an observant linesman noticed a RWU player was offside. The home audience took a breath of relief.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both teams were evenly matched, a period of Suffolk\u2019s dominance was soon followed by RWU taking control. In the last five minutes of the first half, both teams had one more chance for a goal, but both goalies showed their skill by saving them effortlessly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The second half followed a similar pattern as the first \u4e00 Suffolk and RWU repeatedly demonstrated to the audience why they are evenly matched. Although no goal was scored, the duels and skills were sufficiently entertaining.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The game completely changed when Mohamed Mehaya got his second yellow card. Two yellow cards in a game is a red card, which meant Suffolk had to play 10 on 11. Playing a man down in a regular game is hard enough, let alone for a heated game against the No. 1 in the conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the audience held their breath for the remaining 20 minutes, Suffolk played some stellar defense down the stretch. Any possibility for an attack was matched by utter dominant play on defense. RWU relentlessly tried but no ball hit its mark.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When the referee blew his whistle to signal the end of the game, some Suffolk players dropped to the floor, marking their exhaustion and partial consolation. The players might have hoped for a better result, but leaving the pitch with a point could feel like a consolation prize.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Afterwards, head coach Bill Maddock looked back at the heated and physical game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is always a physical game when you play Roger Williams,\u201d Maddock said. \u201cWe have played them in the finals for the last three years. It\u2019s always a high emotion game, but physical soccer is something we have to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Maddock was quite proud of his players, especially after the red card.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt changes the whole complexion of the game,\u201d Maddock said. \u201cUp to that point, it was a very even game, but when you go down a man, it changes everything. Our guys handled it well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maddock praised his players and how they showed emotional maturity when they played with a man down. Their main focus was on the mentality to play together as a team, and Maddock argued that that was evident.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lastly, when asked about the goalie, Ian Caldwell, and how he had kept the team afloat, Maddock immediately complimented the goalie\u2019s skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIan always had that quality in him,\u201d Maddock said. \u201cThis is the first season that he is fully healthy. He has battled injuries in the first couple seasons. He put in a lot of hard work to get back on the field. He has had a great season so far.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team has its next game Oct. 20 and will miss Meheya for at least one game. Hopefully it would not affect the team\u2019s efforts for the last few games.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Suffolk\u2019s men\u2019s soccer team played one of their most important games of the season Oct. 17 against defending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-940678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}