USF men’s soccer falls in Big East tournament

Posted Nov 6, 2011 by Adam Adkins

Updated Nov 6, 2011 at 05:34 PM

The University of South Florida men’s soccer team suffered its first loss in nearly two months Sunday afternoon, but there was a hidden blessing.

It came in the Big East Conference tournament – not the NCAA tournament.

While the Bulls hoped to punch their ticket to New Jersey for next week’s conference tournament semifinals at Red Bull Arena, knowing a 1-0 loss to visiting Villanova in a Big East quarterfinal matchup was not a season-ender offered a bit of comfort on a frustrating day.

“I still feel like we’ll be a high seed in the (NCAA) tournament,” said USF coach George Kiefer, whose squad had its 11-game unbeaten streak snapped, “and now we have a great teaching point going into the postseason, that on any given day anyone can beat you if you don’t show up.”

The game’s lone goal came just two minutes, 10 seconds into the match, when Wildcats midfielder Kyle Soroka shot low on a free kick from just outside the 18-yard box and snuck it into the corner past a diving Chris Blais.

“I saw it real late. It went through like four or five guys’ legs,” said Blais, USF’s goalkeeper. “I’ll take the blame, say I should have saved it. Just couldn’t see the ball, and before you knew it was in the back of the net.”

Villanova’s (8-8-4) defense and goalkeeper John Fogarty made the early goal hold up, withstanding a furious USF (12-3-3) rally attempt late in the game. Fogarty was credited with four saves, and the biggest came with just less than two minutes to play.

USF forward Stiven Salinas fired a rocket toward the upper right corner of the goal, but Fogarty made a diving save and tipped it over the crossbar to help seal the victory in front of an announced crowd of 1,589 at Corbett Stadium.

“I thought (Fogarty) did a good job, but I also feel like we fed the keeper confidence today by floating some balls into him where we could have driven them a little more,” Kiefer said.

The Bulls, who won the Big East’s Red Division title and were ranked fifth in the latest NCAA RPI rankings, will now wait to find out their draw for the national tournament, which will be announced Nov. 14.

“This could be a good wakeup call for us,” Kiefer said. “It could be exactly what we needed.”