Men's soccer falls short on goals

By Matthew Cucuzza

After last year's outstanding season, the Santa Clara men's soccer team is hoping to harness more success soon.

In 2007, the Broncos went undefeated in West Coast Conference play, earned their second straight WCC Championship and made their fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance.

Still, head coach Cameron Rast sees much room for improvement.

"Right now, we're not playing very well," Rast said. "We're leaking goals and we need to change that."

The Broncos have allowed 11 goals and scored only seven in six games. After six games last season, Santa Clara had scored 10 goals, allowed only five and had a record of 3-1-2.

The Broncos were not defeated again until the third round of the NCAA Tournament to Notre Dame. "It's not that we're playing poorly, we're just giving some goals away that are costing us games," Rast said.

In the Preseason Coaches Poll, Santa Clara was voted the favorite to win the WCC Championship for the fourth time in the past five years.

Rast says that this ranking is largely because of the team's successes last season.

"Until you start playing games, I think it becomes difficult to know how good your team really is," Rast said.

"We may end up looking at making some changes," Rast said.

Seven starters returned from last year's squad, including All-WCC honorees Stephen McCarthy, Kevin Klasila, Jide Ogunbiyi, Kellen Wantulok and Jalil Anibaba.

The Broncos will not have the services of star players Peter Lowry, Matt Hatzke, Jamil Roberts or Matt Marquess this season after all graduated and were selected in the 2008 Major League Soccer SuperDraft. Midfielder Brian Curry has also graduated.

"All of them contributed directly to our team and were very mature individuals on and off the field," said Rast. "On the field, that gave our team a lot of stability."

On-field stability has become an issue this season for the Broncos as they search to replace the maturity and skill of the five graduates.

Rast is hoping sophomore Anibaba can step up and provide some extra stability to a back line that contains no seniors.

"It's a very young back line. He's got to provide the stability and consistency in performance," said Rast. "Those are critical for our team's success."

Another factor critical to the team's success will be the quality of their scoring chances.

Rast believes a large portion of the Broncos offense will revolve around senior captain Ogunbiyi. "We are hoping that he will be a good presence up front, get a hold of the ball and be goal dangerous," said Rast. "He's got to get a hold of the ball and draw players in and play the ball off."

So far, Ogunbiyi - who was invited to try out for the Nigerian Olympic team but narrowly missed out - has had only one shot on goal in six games and no points.

Junior midfielder Jeff Cosgriff leads the team with two goals and two assists heading into Wednesday night's clash with rivals San Jose State at Buck Shaw Stadium.

Santa Clara's game against Stanford in Palo Alto on Saturday night will be their final non-conference game of the season. Rast hopes the Broncos can improve in conference play, particularly on the road.

"The team we've had the last couple years was very good at getting good results on the road. That's something this team is needing to develop, and it's something we have not done up to this point," Rast said. "But we will have opportunities to do that in conference play."

Contact Matthew Cucuzza at (408) 551-1918 or mcucuzza@scu.edu.