Saints Season One of Injuries, Near Misses
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Tara FreemanRookie Sam DeMello was the second-leading scorer for the Saints with seven goals
St. Lawrence University's men's soccer team finds itself in the odd position of being on the outside looking in as post-season competition begins for the 2009 soccer season.
The Saints, participants in the Liberty League tournament since its inception in 2002 and NCAA participants in 10 of the previous 11 years had their season end with the conclusion of the final regular season game for the first time since 1995.
Sophomore Brendan Gorman earned first team honors and freshman Sam DeMello was named to the second team as the 2009 Liberty League men's soccer all stars were announced Nov. 5. Additionally, captain James Stewart, sophomore Dan Marvin and senior Joey Mattina were accorded honorable mention status. Gorman was also named to the ECAC all star team as a second team selection.
It was a season plagued by injuries, starting from day one of pre-season practice, and one which saw some tantalizing bounces and caroms off posts and crossbars which could have made a huge difference had they gone in another direction. While the 8-6-1 overall record was the lowest number of wins for a Saint team since 1993 and just the second time in the last ten years that the team has failed to reach double digits in victories, it wasn't a reflection of lack of effort.
"I don't think we ever were able to field the team that we wanted to put out there," said veteran Saint coach Bob Durocher, who now has 240 wins in his 20 seasons. "The injuries we frustrating for the coaching staff and for the guys...we played a lot of high-quality opponents and we played them tough, but our league is strong enough that there isn't any room for error."
The Saints went 6-1-1 in non-league competition, the lone loss to the University of Rochester, 2-1 in overtime which was then ranked 19th nationally and 3rd in the region and rose to as high as sixth nationally during the season. They tied Plattsburgh, ranked 22nd nationally and third in the region at the time of the game and four of the five conference losses came against teams which were ranked nationally or regionally during the season. Going into the final weekend of the regular season, Rensselaer was ranked seventh nationally with Hobart and Hamilton ranked regionally. The Saints lost to all three of those teams by a goal and outshot each team by a significant margin...18-12 against RPI, 20-12 with a 6-3 corner kick advantage against Hamilton and 27-14 with a 10-4 corner kick advantage against Hobart.
The Saints were the top scoring team in the Liberty League, both in league play and in overall goals per game, and did that without Emmanuel Mbong, a senior who was leading the team in scoring as a junior until fracturing his leg in Texas late last year. Mbong never suited up for the Saints in his senior season due to injury and captain James Stewart missed five games outright and played in 10 others with a torn ACL. Stewart was out for the Rochester game, starter Dan Casserly missed four league games, all losses, and his replacement, Sean Scott played his final game against Hamilton because of illness. Alex Soto also had his season cut short with an injury in the RPI game and Stewart missed the final game of the year, a 6-2 win over Clarkson, when he aggravated his knee injury early in the Plattsburgh game, ending his year.
Two of the league losses, both 1-0 scores, were to Union and Hamilton and the Saints played a man down in both of those games with the game-deciding goal scored when SLU was shorthanded. The Saints were a man-down for 85 minutes in the Union game, but still had a chance to win, and played the last 12 minutes of the Hamilton game a man down with one of their best defenders on the bench.
"When you look at it in retrospect, we were very close to a good year despite all the injuries and near-misses on scoring chances," said Durocher. "We had the game-winning goal hit the inside of the post and bounce out against Plattsburgh and we had a number of games in which we outplayed the opposition everywhere except on the scoreboard. We played two freshman goalkeepers for only the third time in 20 years and it is very difficult for a freshman to adjust to the college game in that position. Even (All America and pro goalkeeper) Greg Sutton didn't start his freshman year!"
Gorman followed up an outstanding rookie campaign with an even better second season, leading the team and all Liberty League scorers with 12 goals, including a record-tying four in one game and rookie midfielder Sam DeMello was the second leading scorer for the Saints with seven goals. Four of the top five scorers for the Saints were freshmen or sophomores and graduation will claim just four seniors from the roster.
"Hopefully everyone can return to full health and we can augment our depth with another strong recruiting class...we'll be back," said Durocher.