u Notre Dame
By NOAH AMSTADTER
Sports Writer
When a team completely dominates an opponent in seemingly every category, the end result is usually a victory.
Unfortunately for the Irish men's soccer team, this wasn't the case Wednesday night as they lost its home opener 3-1 to the 21st-ranked Braves of Bradley.
Despite putting up 25 shots to merely seven by the Braves, the Irish were only able to convert one penalty kick into a goal.
Head coach Chris Apple felt that the team's youth showed tonight.
"It's frustrating to own the ball, to own the game, to have 25 shots to their seven, to have seven corner kicks to their three, and come out on the losing end," Apple said. "A lot of our youth and inexperience showed to-night. We were the better team, but better teams don't always win when they don't play intelligently."
The Braves began the scoring early — just three minutes and seven seconds into the game. Bradley's Hamid Mehreios-kouei drove the ball downfield before finding a flying Gavin Glinton open on the right side. Glinton received the pass on the right side and shot the ball past Irish goalkeeper Greg Tait for the game's first score.
"We knew that their two forwards were going to be good," said Tait, "I just don't know if we accommodated for their quickness and speed right away. For them it was really the two man show up front."
The Irish regrouped to dominate the majority of the remainder of the first half. Freshman Chad Riley and sophomore Justin Ratcliffe each were able to get two shots before the half ended. However, Bradley goalkeeper Adam Gross, playing behind a strong defense, was able to keep the Irish off the scoreboard.
Notre Dame allowed Bradley a second scoring opportunity late in the first half, as Glinton was able to take an open shot in the box.
Tait dove to the ground to make the save, Tait made the initial save but Glinton pounced on the rebound for a goal.
"He came through from my right. Steve Maio slowed him down to the point where I could come and I tackled him," Tait said, "When I deflected the ball it kind of went to my left. I tried to get back and [Glinton] literally just kicked me in the back of my head, trampled me down on the ground and put it away."
Tait felt that the physical play was an important aspect of the game.
"The first 20 or 25 minutes of the game was some of the fastest soccer I've played in a long time," Tait said. "As the game went on, we were getting more and more intense and along with that comes physical energy.
As the second half went on, we got more and more anxious, and the tackles were taken a bit more personally."
The Irish came out aggressively in the second half as well, taking 15 shots to only one for the Braves.
At 76:05, senior Griffin Howard was fouled in the penalty box following a header shot by freshman Justin Detter and awarded a penalty shot. Howard put the ball past Gross for his second goal in the last three games, closing the gap to 2-1
Unfortunately, that was all the offense the Irish could muster. Despite 16 second half shots — including four by Riley — the Irish never really seemed close to tying the game.
Bradley sealed the game at the 81:11 mark. After a shot by Irish sophomore Andreas Forster was blocked,
Bradley's Justin Arabadjief was able to break away from the Irish defense and take the ball downfield toward the Irish goal. In the final third of the field, he found Mehreioskoui open for his second goal of the season.
Following two shutout victories last weekend, Apple was less than pleased about his team's defensive play.
"Tonight our defensive play was haphazard. Sometimes it was there, sometimes it was not," said Apple, "There's no reason to give a team three counter-attacks like that and give up three goals. The second half they had one shot, the one that went in. That was it."
Apple also believed the offense needs to work more on shot selection, despite producing almost four times as many shots as Bradley.
"I think we need to create more dangerous chances, more chances from 12 yards on in rather than 25 yards and out," Apple said. "So, we'll work on that a little bit, we'll work on keeping the ball from the middle third to the final third of the field."
The team looks to regroup this weekend as it travels east for the Big East Conference opener against Boston College at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
All Sports Stories for Thursday, September 7, 2000
