Through the haze of on-field fights, sideline shouting and an eventual 1-0 loss against La Salle, a bigger story revealed itself Sunday: The men’s soccer team would be missing out on the Atlantic 10 Championships for the second straight year.
Instead, the Colonials finished their season earlier than they intended, losing four straight games to end the season and failing to do better than a 5-10-2 overall record – 2-4-2 in conference play.
In the 17th minute Sunday, the Colonials’ defense successfully cleared a corner kick and started to advance up the field. A La Salle forward, though, sent the ball back into the goalie box toward a teammate, who headed into the lower left corner of the net, past sophomore goalie Jean-Pierre van der Merwe.
The word “offsides” immediately flew around the field as well as the stands, as the GW coaches and players shouted from the sidelines about the position of La Salle midfielder Joe Farrell, who scored the goal.
In a turn of events, the goal was ruled legal and left a scent of controversy surrounding GW’s final game of the regular season.
“We can’t complain about calls, but you know what? For me, that was an offsides goal, so for me that was hard to take,” head coach Craig Jones said.
The questionable goal was one of many frustrations for the Colonials, who controlled the game from start to finish with an up-tempo pace. But they still couldn’t push one across, despite outshooting La Salle 14 to six.
One of those additional frustrations came in the 65th minute, when senior forward Tyler Ranalli ended his collegiate career on a sour note by leaving the game with a red card after being handed his second yellow card of the match.
“I’m sure he won’t forget that very quickly. I think it was certainly a foul, I didn’t think it was a yellow card. I think a lot more was made out of it with players trying to burst onto the scene and then the [referee] makes a shotgun decision just from all the shouting and pushing that ensues,” Jones said.
Sophomore Ross Higgins said that Ranalli’s ejection was a tough blow to the team, but that it motivated them even more to play for the seniors in their final game.
“In the beginning I was in it for the seniors, but that definitely elevated my game seeing him going hard,” Higgins said. “His passion for the game really put into perspective what we needed to get accomplished.”
But with the loss, and with conference foe Saint Joseph’s defeating Fordham 1-0 the same afternoon, GW came up a point short of being among the top eight teams in the conference that receive a bid to the A-10 tournament.
The high stakes were clear from the physical game, which included 28 total fouls, 17 for La Salle and 11 for GW. Three times throughout the game, fights had to be broken up, with groups of players pushing and shoving each other. At one moment, La Salle midfielder Glenroy Chapman even had to be picked up by a teammate and carried away from a group of fighting players.
Junior Andri Alexandersson, who had five shots in the game, didn’t mind the adrenaline pumping on the field.
“I think everyone loves when the game gets a little physical and it elevates everyone’s game. That’s what you want to see – intensity in both teams,” he said.
In a surprise move, van der Merwe got the start in goal over Luke Farrell for the first time in conference play this season. Jones said the decision was not based just on the team’s most recent disheartening 3-1 loss to Saint Joseph’s on Friday. Van der merwe had four saves on the night.
“We’ve lost the last three games, so we’re looking for a spark from someone. We’re looking to mix things up a little bit,” Jones said.
Concluding their season with four losses is certainly not the way the Colonials wanted to end, especially after sitting in fifth place in the conference just two weeks ago.
The fate of their playoff season was in their hands, and they let it slip away.
