Going with the Flow with Greg Cochrane
November 14, 2012 | Men's Soccer
Nov. 14, 2012
Louisville, Ky. - It's the most wonderful time of the year...NCAA Tournament time! But first, let's recap the past two or so weeks. After securing the number one seed in the Big East Tournament, we were to host Marquette in the quarterfinals. Unfortunately, the game did not go our way. Marquette scored off of two restarts, resulting in a 2-0-halftime lead. We were prepared to battle in the second half and we created countless scoring opportunities. These chances only resulted in one goal, so we got knocked out.
Since we could not move on in the Big East tournament, it was time to prepare for the NCAA tournament. By the time our game rolls around, we will have had a two-week break. While we have grown a lot as a team from these training sessions, I can speak for most of us that we are ready to play a game again! Well, an official game that is. On Saturday we had a full out intra-squad scrimmage. It was almost if it was a real game. Granted it was at 8:00 a.m. but we had our pregame music playing during warm-ups, and went through our normal game day routine. To make it more game like, you couldn't wear your training pants during the game, shorts it was. Daniel Keller tried to be sly by pulling his pant legs up to make them look like shorts, but he was caught about 10 minutes in by coach. He didn't have shorts on underneath, meaning he had to run back to the locker-room to change mid-game. What a clown.
On Monday, we found out our NCAA Tournament bracket. We gathered as a team to watch the selection show. Once we saw that we were given the number 10 seed, we cheered like little kids on Christmas morning. Getting this seed means we have a first round bye and host the second round game. We play on Sunday night at 7:00 p.m. at Cardinal Park verse the winner of SMU/Winthrop. We would love to see you guys out there!
A couple quick shout outs and congratulations are in order. First, Andrew Farrell was named Big East Defender of the Year. He and Paolo DelPiccolo were named First team All-Big East, Will Vitalis was second team, Dylan Mares and myself were third team, and Marlon Hairston was All-Rookie team. While these may seem like individual awards, we all see them as team awards. So in a sense, we were all Big East Defender of the Year!
Also, props have to go to Dylan Mares and Ryan Smith for best Halloween costume. I am sure most of you have heard of the hit-duo Salt `n Peppa (Paolo and Andrew). Well, Ryan dressed up as Salt and Dylan was Peppa. There outfits were spot on. Well done fellas.
