EC 1 Rose Hulman 0

We come to our last home game with much to play for. To be sure of a place in the conference tournament we must get at least 4 points from these last two games (Rose at home, MSJ away) and both will be tough assignments. Rose are second at the moment but after looking at their matches on line, I feel they're the best of the HCAC teams (except us !). Rose's strength is the organization of their defence; they always seem to have all 11 players behind the ball immediately after losing it and their goals against average (0.47) confirms this. The two strikers they use, Will Senat and Drew Belk are excellent and always ready to score on the break.

The first half produces a couple of chances for each team but nothing resembling a solid opportunity. Sam Embry in goal gets to an errant cross that threatens to drop behind him and this becomes the closest either team gets. Rose needs a win here if they are going to overtake Hanover, who top the table currently and the respect they show us by letting us play in front of them surprises me a bit.

In the 59th minute Mike Nsoesie has time to get his head up and play a ball forward on the ground to Ameer Yusuf. The pass beats the Rose center back that defends Ameer and he's through on goal. After rounding the keeper Ameer has the smallest angle to play the ball with his left into goal and when he does, the fans on the other side and our bench erupt. 30 minutes to play and we lead---but that's been a danger signal for us because our opponents often find the best way to beat us by playing directly and especially in the air---witness the Anderson game. Scary moments ensue as Rose now come forward with less caution and create a series of chances but Sam deals with them all including a scramble in front inside the last 10 minutes. This time the presence of Frank Mbaya and Tamru Taye see us through to the end. Frank and Mike conduct a master class on defending against the Rose danger men.

A nice ending to Senior Day as the 13 seniors on the team are honored at halftime and the announcer reads a statement from them to the fans that I will include later. The crowd this day is huge, reminiscent of scenes from the late 90's and their vocal support means much to the men on the field. We head to Mount St. Joseph with possibilities....

Anderson 4 EC 1

Fresh from the win over Transy, we travel to Anderson to play a tough conference game made tougher by the absence of Tamru Taye and Frank Mbaya. Tamru, a geology major, has been invited to a conference in Colorado and Frank has to return to Lexington on family business. Enough that we miss these starters but crucially both play important roles in our defending at corners and set pieces. Corey Campbell and Zander Ansara are in the first eleven with Aaron Falsetto in goal.

The first half is tightly contested, with our best chance coming on a ball played across goal by David Jones that Feli Muyumba just misses. Their statistical edge in shots doesn't reflect the evenness of the game.

Just after half time (47th), Jacob Ebbs plays a classic one-two with Ameer Yusuf and finishes with his left from about 18 yards for a 1-0 lead for us. We get another couple of half chances in the next few minutes that result in nothing. As often as not, when we score our opponent tends to become more direct and we often have problems with that---which are multiplied today by our missing players. Anderson equalizes in the 62nd minute through leading scorer Todd Canal and proceeds to score 3 more at 8 minute intervals, 2 coming from far post headers from corners in the area often defending by Frank or Tamru.

No excuses: Anderson have a 4-1 win on their homecoming and despite their slow start to the year, they have a clear path into the HCAC tournament if they keep winning especially since they now have the tiebreaker against us. At this point, the possibilities are almost endless with 6 teams alive for the 4 tournament places.