Drake Men's Soccer Team Advances to Sweet 16

The Drake Men's Soccer team led by several local players advanced to the sweet 16 of the NCAA division one soccer tournament. Michael Noonan(Xavier), Hunter Kennedy (Wash), Kenan Malicevic (Cedar Valley), Michael Rummelhart (Regina), and Charles Schwartz (CRSA), all play for the Bulldogs.  COLUMBUS, OHIO - In the midst of a scrum came a golden goal as senior Luke Gorczyca's (Overland Park, Kan./St. Thomas Aquinas) found the back of the net at the 96:56 mark of overtime lifted the 24th-rated Drake men's soccer team to a 1-0 victory over No. 13 Ohio State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday (Nov. 22) at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium.The win propelled the Bulldogs to the third round of the tournament for the first time in school history and improved their ledger to 15-6-2, while the Buckeye's campaign ended at 12-5-4."First and foremost today was a terrific, highly-competitive college soccer match," Drake head coach Sean Holmes commented. "To go on the road after virtually no rest after a hard Thursday game and get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning to travel to the champions of the Big Ten Conference and then to play as well as we did and to win was just icing on the cake.""There has been a collective self belief on this team now for some two years and today was just another step towards fulfilling the potential that has always existed."Setting up the play was a ball from sophomore Thomas Ostrander (Fort Dodge, Iowa/St. Edmond Catholic) that went into the box and created the action out of which Gorczyca emerged with his fifth goal of the season."The play developed where the ball was played it into Garrett (Webb), who found Thomas (Ostrander) on the outside and he has always been taught to beat his man if its 1v1 and he did so," Gorczyca explained. "Oz worked the ball in and I happened to run post and just got a foot on it where the keeper saved it and it went up in the air and there was a mess in the box and it happened to bounce over everyone and spun in the goal. I thought our defense played spectacular and our forwards fought hard, Ohio State was a great team and it was a great victory."Gorczyca also established some history in the match as he played in his 80th career contest, good for tops in school history.The Bulldogs stormed the field following the golden goal as Drake had taken down the No. 4 national seed Buckeyes to set up a showdown with Boston College, which was a 1-0 winner over St. John's, next Sunday (Nov. 29)."The obvious storyline is of a David-Goliath nature but college soccer is still 11 versus 11 and these seniors once again rose to the occasion," said Holmes. "Luke (Gorczyca) was credited with the goal but it was almost if all of them were willing the ball across the line.""I felt in the end of the game would be decided by a scramble, which at this point in the season most of the boys are too shattered to run the length of the field, beat six guys and roof it. Seasons are decided not only by genius but more likely by shear desire,"The Bulldogs were out shot in the affair, 11-10, but Drake garnered a 4-1 advantage on shots on goal.Gorczyca led the Bulldogs with a team-high three shots, while senior Julien Edwards (Ottawa, Ont./De La Salle) registered two shots.The defensive effort by the Bulldogs starting four of Edwards, senior Calvin Clark (Overland Park, Kan./St. Thomas Aquinas), senior Brian Wurst (Kansas City, Mo./Park Hill South) and junior Nick Foster (West Des Moines, Iowa/Valley) proved to be the difference in the affair and the quartet consistently denied the Buckeye attack clearing countless balls from the box. Redshirt junior Michael Drozd (Harwood Heights, Ill./Loyola Academy) collected Drake's eighth shutout of the season pulling in one save.The game started as a battle of two equally matched teams looking to attack the other with shots coming at a premium in the initial 15 minutesThe Buckeyes best scoring chance came at the 20:43 mark when Konrad Warzycha nailed a free kick from the top of the box that Drozd made a diving save to his left to deflect the ball out of bounds and end the threat.Sam Scales followed with a shot that was blocked in the middle of the box at the 24:41 mark.Drake's first scoring opportunity came in the 29th minute (28:28) when senior Garrett Webb (Prairie Village, Kan./Shawnee Mission East) feed a ball into the box that junior Matt Kuhn (Raytown, Mo./Raytown South) headed just off the mark.Junior Evan Harrison (Evansville, Ind./Reitz Memorial) nearly capitalized off a tight pass from senior Kevin Shrout (Lee's Summit, Mo./Lee's Summit) that nailed the side of the net at the 35:50 mark.Edwards' header off a Kuhn corner went high over the net at the 42:56 mark.Ohio State bested Drake in the first half in shot, 9-7, with five different Bulldogs registering shots.The second half went back and forth as both side had scoring threats that were denied with fine defensive efforts.Drake out shot the Buckeyes in the second half, 4-3, but was unable to find the back of the net."They defended very well," Ohio State head coach John Bluem said. "We fought but just didn't get the outcome. It's not easy to go on the road and get a result but they did that today. It wasn't our day; it wasn't meant to be. The inability to produce a goal today got us ... We've had the fortune with late and timely goals the last few weeks but we ran out of luck."