April 17, 2009

It's been a crazy few days here in the URI soccer office between our game on Wednesday night with Holy Cross and getting some distressing news on tax day. As you may or may not have heard, on Wednesday the University of Maine dropped their men's soccer program (as well as women's volleyball). A terrible thing professionally, as a Maine alum and as a close friend of Pat Laughlin the coach who is a former assistant here at URI. We have had to do some scrambling to replace our home game with Maine as well as the games which were supposed to play at Maine's Tournament to open our season. Fortunately we have been able to add Boston College, Binghamton University and arrange to go to Siena College. We unfortunately had to drop the Sacred Heart game to avoid a two week gap in the schedule mid-season but the 2009 schedule is set now and attached.

As you can imagine it I have a heavy heart for a program which fueled my passion for the game and is a part of why I am in this position at URI today. I am terribly disappointed in the administration at the University of Maine for the timing of the decision. Their is no god time to drop intercollegiate sports but as we all know decisions like these are not made overnight. The failure to notify the coaches, players and recruits earlier is un-excusable as far as I am concerned because now these kids are 2 weeks from exams with a slim chance of being able to find a spot on a team via transfer or such. The worse of it all is that Pat Laughlin is without a job come June 30th when his contract expires. No severance pay...no "we will pay you and cover your benefits through December"...NOTHING! No matter what the reasons, you just don't treat people that way. It is very disheartening and has made me re-think my association to an institution which game me so much. Keep Pat and the players at Maine in your thoughts that things will work out. I know we would love to have Pat back here on the Rhody side-lines as a volunteer this fall to keep in the game so don't be surprised if you see him.

Well, as far as the game on Wednesday night we went to Worcester with a small squad of only 14 healthy players. Chris Pennock, Andres Ruiz, Kevin Shaw and Dom Petrarca were nursing injuries while Josh Sousa was sick with the flu. Although the bench was thin, we had a good squad to put out and tremendous chance for players to get in a full 90 minutes of action as we get close to the end of the spring campaign.

The game started out very well for the visitors, as we were able to move the ball and create some good chances. The ball movement paid off when Michael Tanke (Niles, MI), who was just returning from a sickness himself, combined with Greg Balicki (Wilbraham, MA) to dribble through the Crusader central defense and finish a hard low shot into the corner. The lead was short lived as the Crusaders stormed back with two goals of their own on counter attacks which we didn't react to well. The second half showed a renewed spirit and play which produced results when Erkko Puranen (Viitasaari, Finland) got fouled in the box for a penalty. Jonathan Pereira (Barrington, RI) finished the PK well to equalize the game. Holy Cross kept plugging away and eventually netted the game winner on a free-kick, making the end result 3-2 to the home team.

HOLY CROSS LINE-UP: Warwick (Tavares 60), Zane, Williams, Hutson, LoPresti, Preyss, Crooks, Tanke (Gonsalves), Markman, Balicki (Pereira), Puranen.

Finally, the ANNUAL ALUMNI GAME is only a week away on SATURDAY APRIL 25th at 11:00 am here at the URI Soccer Complex. The following guy's have either committed or told skipper Gareth Elliott they are coming:

Michael Bradley, Dan Brownridge, Aidan Byrne, Ryan Chmielweski, Kedan Crosby, Gareth Elliott, Paul Fanning, Kevin Hamill, Kevin Kennedy, Pat Maguire, Ahmad Manning, Steve Mellen, Andres Perdomo, James Quiah, Dennis Richards, Jesse Simmons, Joe Spofford, Gabe Toro.

If you are not on this list and planning on coming, know someone who is not on this list who is coming or if you THINK you are coming PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE let us know. This includes friends and family as their will be a BBQ following the game which is FREE for all those alumni who attend and $10 per person for friends and family. Donations to help cover the cost of the t-shirts and food are always welcome.

Well, we have our second to last spring game tomorrow at 2:00 pm versus Southern New Hampshire here at the URI Soccer Complex (re-scheduled from the Maine Spring Invite in Cape Elizabeth, ME). If you are in the area then we hope to see you play.

TAKE CARE & GO RHODY!
Coach O'C