NEW CASTLE, DELAWARE – (Continuing his look at teams from the Be Positive College Showcase, Joe  Mauceri looks at the Temple Owls.)

The B+ (Be Positive) foundation was created after the untimely demise of a courageous 14 year old soccer player, Andrew McDonough from leukemia.  He was renowned for his positive attitude which coincidentally matched his blood type – B+.  The foundation has 3 primary objectives: provide financial support to families with critically ill children; fund medical research for pediatric cancers; and proliferate the B+ message.  If you’d like to find out more information on this organization, here’s a link.

Temple against Lafayette: 4-4-1-1.
F: Evan Bransdorfer
W/Drawn F: Tyler Witmer
M: Jake Lister, Cody Calafiore, Ryan Bradbury, Dalton Carroll
D: Rodrigo Zuleta, Nolan Hemmer, Billy Kappock, Sam Heller
GK: Bobby Rosato

Temple Observations:

Temple scrambled to score 2 second-half goals to draw with Lafayette.  I only saw Temple play Lafayette, so my comments will be from that match alone.

Temple may be one of the best debating teams in the NCAA.  They argue amongst themselves, officials, opponents – everyone but the fans on the sidelines.  Most concerning is that they aren’t trying to hold their teammates to a standard – but contempt for who takes a free kick, blaming each other.  This is a problem.  In the corporate world, team-building would be proscribed – as punishment.

The first goal was scored by Billy Kappock’s header from a Matt MacWilliams corner kick that found Kappock on the far post.  Kappock is a big guy with a solid base who isn’t easy to knock off his spot.  Minutes before this goal, the same connection almost scored but the header was high, it was smart to try this again.  Kappock beat Graham Turner on both of these plays.

The second goal was scored by Homero Rodriguez late in the second half.  The play began with a long diagonal from Vaughn Spurrier that found Rodriguez unmarked in the box on the far post.  Rodriguez took 2 touches before slotting the ball between the legs of closing goalkeeper Graham Heydt.  

Cody Calafiore is Temple’s best technical player in passing, vision and dribbling in tight spaces though he lacks maturity which retards his ability to lead.  In the second half on a free kick, he instructed Rodrigo Zuleta that he wanted the free kick.  Zuleta took it instead.  Calafiore went loony – yelling at Zuleta as they ran across the field.  It was amateurish.  Humorously, a few minutes later, Temple had a free kick in a similar spot.  Calafiore didn’t Zuleta anywhere near the free kick – then Calafiore shanked the ball across the field.  Even he realized that it was crap yelling an invective to cement that even his most loyal follower realized that he didn’t want to kick the ball harmlessly across the field.

Zuleta had his own moment of questionable actions, screaming at his teammates to cover for him after the first goal while they quarreled that he should have covered the deep man.  I’m not exactly sure who was to blame (tape will show the problem), but at that point, calmness and leadership was deeply needed to stop the bleeding.

Evan Bransdorfer is strong on the ball.  He needs to increase the accuracy of his shots, because his shots are all over the place.