Tulsa Claims Third-Straight Championship

November 13, 2016

The Tulsa men’s soccer team claimed their third-straight American Athletic Conference Championship and earned the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Championship with a 1-1 tie with USF and a 4-2 penalty kick shootout on Sunday afternoon at the Corbett Stadium on the USF campus in Tampa, Fla. TU moved to 10-4-5 on the season, while the Bulls moved to 10-6-3 overall.

“I couldn’t be more proud and happy for the guys for always going for it and grinding it out against a good team,” Head Coach Tom McIntosh said. “They won another trophy and you can’t take that away. It was a strange year with 10 wins, four losses and five ties, and our RPI just wasn’t as good as it has been the last several years. We are a better team than our RPI has indicated, which is a big part of the selection process, but now we don’t’ have to worry when we watch the selection show tomorrow. Now we go back to start the process over again with the goal of winning another trophy.”

All three of TU’s American Athletic Conference Championships have come by a shootout, tying USF (0-0) in 2014 and UConn (1-1) in 2015. Besides the Golden Hurricane’s three American Athletic Conference titles, TU won four Conference USA tournament titles and one Missouri Valley Conference tournament title.

Tulsa goalkeeper Jake McGuire came up big in the shootout, stopping two penalty kick attempts by the Bulls in the shootout. For his efforts he was named the Most Outstanding Defensive Player of the Tournament and to the all-tournament team.

Juan Sanchez, who scored a goal in each of the two tournament games, was named the Most Outstanding Offensive Player of the Tournament and was tabbed to the all-tournament team.

Also picking up all-tournament team accolades were defender Quinton Duncan, midfielder Ray Saari and midfielder Rollie Rocha.

The first half ticked off the clock scoreless, but Nazeem Bartman got an early second-half goal for the Bulls as he recorded a score off a pass from Marcus Epss at the 51:42 mark. Just over 20 minutes later, Sanchez evened the score off a forward pass from Rocha that he chipped over the USF keeper from 10 yards out with 71:43 on the clock.

The remaining 18:17 of the second half and both 10-minute overtime periods were scoreless to end the game as a 1-1 tie and forcing the match into a penalty kick shootout to determine who would claim the tournament title and the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Championship.

In the shootout, first up was Tulsa’s Duncan, who scored with a shot to the lower left corner. Graham Smith took a shot to the left for the Bulls, but his attempt was stopped by McGuire. Matthew Puig also went left with his kick, which was just wide of the goalkeeper reach to score. Ricardo Gomez also went left to put USF on the board, which made the penalty kick tally, 2-1.

Munashe Raranje’s shot was just high for TU, but Gonzalo Rodriguez evened the tally, 2-2, as he put his attempt in the top shelf. Zack Stavrou went right to score his PK, and Marcus Epps went left, but a big save by McGuire made the penalty kick tally 3-2. Tulsa’s Saari stepped to the line and put one into the lower right corner to give Tulsa a 4-2 advantage and put the shootout tally out of reach for USF.

“I thought we created a couple good chances, but we allowed them too much time on the ball in the first half and they were keeping us pinned in more than we would have liked,” McIntosh said. “We did defend well in the first half and didn’t give up too many chances. We corrected what was going wrong and made some adjustments at half time. The second half was back-and-forth and we gave up a goal, but we kept plugging away and it was a great finish under pressure by Juan. I thought we got good minutes with these hot conditions from guys off the bench so that was great to see. The guys took the PKs well and Jake made two big-time saves.”

Both teams had 11 shots, while USF had a 6-4 advantage in shots on goal and Tulsa had a 5-3 lead in corner kicks.

Puig had a team-best three shots, while Alejandro Chavez, Raranje and Vincent Pedace all had two attempts.

TU will learn its opponent in the NCAA Championship on Monday, November 14 at 12 noon Central. Fans can follow along here: http://www.ncaa.com/news/ncaa/article/2016-09-01/2016-fall-championships-selections

Scoring Summary

Tulsa 0 1 0 0 - 1

USF 0 1 0 0 - 1

Individual Scoring

Nazeem Bartman (USF) at 51:42 (Marcus Epps)

Juan Sanchez (Tulsa) at 71:43 (Rollie Rocha)

Goalkeeper Saves

Jake McGuire (Tulsa) – 3

Spasoje Stefanovic (USF) – 5

All-Tournament Team

Jesus Colombo, M/F, UCF

Abdou Mbacke Thiam, F, UConn