Last Weekend, the Spartans headed to UC Santa Cruz to take part in the second and final regular season tournament. The Spartans came out of the first weekend with a 3-1 record, but were admittedly fortunate with an easy schedule. In the second tournament, the Spartans needed to bring their A game if they were to defeat any of the difficult opponents.
On the final practice before the tournament, Goalie
Cory Murphy was struck in the head by a hard shot. Test results determined that he suffered a mild concussion, making him unable to play this weekend. Murphy had shown in the opening tournament, as well as in practice, that he is an all-league caliber keeper, and being without him this weekend would be a big hit.
In game 1, SJSU faced number 1 seeded UC Berkeley. The Bears entered the tournament on a 23 game win streak dating back to 2015. Cal has claimed the league title for each of the last 5 seasons, and started this season on a 4-0 record. Former goalie
Thomas Rieber agreed to come out of retirement for the day as a huge favor for the Spartans. He has been playing as a member of the practice squad and focusing on graduating this year. After the first quarter, the Spartans trailed only 4-2. The Spartans were inconsistent with their play, showing flashes of greatness at some points, and complacency at others. A sloppy second quarter gave the Bears an insurmountable lead, but the Spartans held it close in the 2nd half. The final was SJSU 9, CAL 19.
In game 2, SJSU took on Cal Maritime. The Spartans came out looking very slow, and trailed 5-1 only midway through the first. Captain
John Moon stopped the game with a timeout and refocused the team. From there, the Spartans pulled it together and evened the score by the 4th, having to give everythign they had in order to crawl back into the game. After trading the lead in the 4th, the Keelhaulers eventually pulled away, netting a late goal and securing the game at 15-13. The team noticably performed their most complete game of the season, but one individual performance stood out. Senior
John Moon netted 8 goals in the contest, tying the most of any player in a single game in team history.
On Sunday, the Spartans opened the day with a matchup against Chico state. For this day of competition, friend of the team Alek Dendall stepped in to help the team in goal, even though he has no goalie experience. On the other side, former Spartan teammate Vinny Rivera now finds himself leading Chico, after transfering there this fall. Vinny maintains friendly contact with the team, and this gave the game a competitive yet sportsmanlike atmosphere. After another back and forth contest, the lack of goalie ended up costing the Spartans again. Although Dendall did better than is to be expected of an average field player, Chico pulled away a 10-8 victory. The Spartans were proud of coming within 2 goals of victory against the 3rd seeded team, given the circumstances.
To finish the tournament, SJSU faced UCSC, looking to exorcise some demons after getting eliminated from championship contention by the slugs last season. The game started as what can only be referred to as a swim meet, with neither team able to find the back of the net. At the end of the first, both teams remained scorless. In the 2nd, the Spartans came out strong, leading 6-2 at the end of the half. The slugs slowly crawled their way back into the game, and trailed only 7-5 going into the 4th. The Slugs scored 2 immediate goals, tying the game. With only 40 seconds left, the score was 8-8, and the Spartans had the ball. With 18 seconds left, the Spartans drew a 6-on-5, a golden opportunity to score and seal the game.
Cory Murphy and Captain Jonney Ramos called a timeout from the bench to allow the players to set up, but in a catastrophic turn of events, the scoring desk claimed that the Spartans had already used all of their timeouts, which would result in a turnover and give Santa Cruz a chance to win the game themselves. Ramos and Murphy protested, confident that they hadn't used their 4th and final timeout. After extensive deliberation, the desk realized that they had made an error, and awarded the Spartans the timeout. When play resumed, sharpshooting freshman
Michael Rodriguez rifled a shot off of the crossbar and sat on the goal line. Spartan senior
Ryan Lewin was the quickest to react, and tapped the ball passed the line, giving the Spartans the lead with only 3 seconds left, sealing the game for the Spartans.
Ryan Lewin is known for being an immovable object defensively in 2-meters, but rarely takes opportunities to score, which his teammates often joke with him about. In this particular contest, he led the team with 3 goals, including the game-winner.
When asked about the goal, Lewin responed, "I almost took myself out during the timeout to let a bigger scoring threat into the game."
The Spartans finished league play with a 4-4 record, ranking as the 5th seed going into the league championship tournament in 2 weeks. Even with the low seeding, the Spartans showed great strides this weekend, and still have their sights set on the top going into the championship tournament on October 21st and 22nd at Cal Maritime.
