NO SMOKE, NO MIRRORS, JUST LONG HOURS

November 4, 2000: St. Lawrence University men's soccer coach Bob Durocher has been Upstate Collegiate Athletic Association Coach of the Year every year since the start of the conference. He was NSCAA Regional Coach of the Year in 1998, repeated that honor and was NSCAA National Division III Coach of the Year in 1999.

You wouldn't know it by their expressions, but Scott Dulay (left) and coach Bob Durocher are watching the final 1:45 of the national championship game and the Saints are leading 2-0.

His teams have put together the nation's longest unbeaten streak, any division, any gender in NCAA soccer and they are going to get the opportunity to play for a second straight national championship.

No matter what happens the rest of the way, the 2000 season is probably Durocher's best coaching performance of his career…or at least ranks among the top two or three.

Coaching a team to a 22-0-0 record and becoming the first team to run the table en route a NCAA Division III championship is more than just a little impressive. Taking a team which graduated the national Player of the Year, an All America back and a multi-purpose back who scored two goals in the NCAA semifinals and finals and then got chomped on by the injury bug before the season ever started to another unbeaten regular season may be even more impressive.

Durocher's teams have compiled a 77-7-9 record over the last five seasons and five of those losses came a year after his team graduated two of the most prolific scorers in Saint soccer history. That 9-5-3 1997 team also included some rookies who have not tasted a real defeat since that season…three-time All America Ali Montacer, Howard Beckford, Ryan Carruth, Dan Schmitt, Bryan Burdick, and Tim Bealer.

A 17-0-2 1998 season saw the Saints outscore the opposition 59-11 overall and 55-8 in the regular season. During the 17-0-0 1999 regular season the Saints outscored their opposition 50-13 and they scored 12 more goals while surrendering just two in their five-game march to the national title. Those two teams were both prolific at one end of the field and miserly at the other.

The current 15-0-2 version of the Saints is a different team, and that is where Durocher has worked his coaching magic.

Prior to the season Durocher and assistants Neil Cifuentes and Mike Toshack envisioned a starting forward line of junior Scott Dulay, senior Ryan Carruth and junior Jamal Ballantyne. Those three players combined for 29 goals and 15 assists in 1999 and would form the nucleus of another explosive Saint offense.

The fuse sputtered before practice ever got underway. Carruth, a second-team All America last year has not played a single second this season after off-season knee surgery and lingering complications during his rehab. Ballantyne missed the first game while playing for the Grenadines and St. Vincent National Team and has missed four others along the way with nagging injuries and Dulay missed a bunch of games early with an injury and has played in just ten games, scoring his first goal of the season in the final regular season game.

Durocher had to patch-work a forward line to be the heart of his offense. Beckford responded with some big early goals, and then got banged up himself. The coach moved midfielders to forward and injected freshmen into what was going to be a veteran lineup. Rookie Julian Daniels responded well enough to be a strong candidate for UCAA Rookie of the Year, but the Saints have been far from the prolific offensive machine of past years.

They generated a ton of shots…outshooting the opposition 325-79 for the season, but shots don't always translate into goals. Their total of 30 goals in 17 games translates to an offensive average of 1.76 goals per game, hardly the stuff undefeated seasons are built on, even in a low-scoring sport such as soccer. But, Durocher's Saints, despite the offensive tribulations, are unbeaten again.

What the current edition of the Saints do well, as well or better than any of the previous teams in the last few years, is play defense and ball control. The other guy can't score if you spend most of the time in his half of the field, and isn't going to score often if you let him take just 4.6 shots per game at your goalkeeper.

And, while Montacer has been his usual dominating presence at midfield, and a big offensive contributor as well, the deep defense needed some restructuring after the graduation of Nick Hillary and Mike Berner. The Saints gained Rasool Alizadeh, a transfer from the University of Denver, to take Berner's spot and Alizadeh has had an excellent season. Seniors Bealer and Schmitt both saw regular action a year ago, so the backfield had experience and talent.

Oops, more injuries. Bealer and Schmitt both have missed time this season, and Durocher had to juggle some people again, moving Shawn Watson, a forward, to back.

It worked.

The Saints goals against average of 0.18 leads the nation in Division III and they have allowed a total of four goals in 17 games, a number matched only by Division I Stanford. Sophomore Dustin Crooker, playing his first season of intercollegiate soccer, leads the nation in goals against average at 0.18 with 12 appearances and has seven shutouts, and junior Brendan Murphy has a 0.33 goals against average in seven games and would rank fourth nationally in Division III, but does not have enough games to qualify for ranking.

Part of Durocher's success is obviously the talent that he has brought to St. Lawrence. There are several players on the Saint roster who were recruited by Division I teams and some, like Montacer, could play for any team in the country. Recruiting at a Division III school is a major part of any program's success and as good as St. Lawrence has been in soccer and with all the current and future facility improvements, players of the caliber Durocher has brought to St. Lawrence don't walk in the door on their own.

Perhaps a bigger part of the success of the coach and his team is preparedness. Durocher spends more time watching film than Siskel and Ebert, breaking down game tapes to better prepare his players. He also has extensive scouting reports on upcoming opposition and knows what their strengths and weaknesses are.

The game plans have obviously worked. Two teams figured out how not to lose to the Saints…play a passive to non-existent offense and do everything you can to keep SLU from scoring. That's one way to play the game, although not Durocher's, who plays to win each time out. And, in both of the 0-0 ties the Saints had a goal called back on offsides calls which might not have withstood video review.

While soccer is undoubtedly his passion, he has other responsibilities in the athletic department. He is in charge of the athletic facilties and spent a good part of Friday, the eve of what might have been the biggest game of the year in terms of NCAA implications, trying to figure out how the parking was going to be handled at Appleton Arena for that night's hockey game.

Then on Saturday, it was back to soccer and devising a game plan for Rochester and a ticket to another NCAA tournament.

About the only thing he hasn't figured out how to do is to coach the ball into the net.

He's working on it.