It wasn’t easy, but the Elon University men’s soccer team escaped Rudd Field Saturday with a 2-1 win over the Davidson College Wildcats in front of a raucous crowd of 717, whom senior forward Chris Thomas credited with helping his team battle back from a goal down to win their first round Southern Conference tournament game.
“By 20 minutes left in the second half we had the twelfth man on the field,” Thomas said. “It was beautiful. This is the best [our crowd has been] since I’ve been here. Our crowd actually got into the game.”
No. 8 seed Davidson, a team the Phoenix pummeled 2-0 earlier this year, came out firing, scoring less than two minutes into the match on an Alex Givens finish inside the box, a goal head coach Darren Powell says was not a cause for concern given the amount of time left in the game.
“The players know themselves, they’ve been around the game, they’ve experienced a lot this season,” Powell said. “They’ve experienced a lot previously in their careers. They know what’s expected so these guys are pretty well versed in what to do. [One minute] into the game we concede a goal, [but] we know there’s another 89. So we have to make sure we win the game for the next 89 minutes.”
The Phoenix defense settled down after giving up the early goal, keeping the Wildcats off the scoreboard and allowing the offense to continue to meticulously pepper the Wildcat goal. The goal however, was the fault of the entire team.
“[The goal] was more of a team slip than a defensive slip,” Dean said. “We were all a little bit all over the place when that goal happened but, from then on, it wasn’t a perfect defensive performance but from there on to keep a shutout for the rest of the game shows that we’re resilient at the back.”
Finally, in the 64th minute, the Phoenix was able to find the back of the net, albeit in rather unusual circumstances. Senior midfielder Gabe Latigue sent a cross into the box, presumably trying to find the head of a teammate. Instead, the ball sailed over everyone and snuck past Davidson goalkeeper Matt Pacifici.
It was fortuitous, but nevertheless important in swinging the momentum of the game back in the Phoenix’s favor.
“Gabe made a nice move on his defender, sent the ball in the box for [the] runners going in and nobody touched it, it went straight into the goal,” Thomas said. “That got the crowd going, that got everyone going. All the momentum totally switched.”
The Phoenix scored 11 minutes later, on Latigue’s cross finished by Thomas, his 22nd of the year.
The win showed Dean that his team can win even without their proverbial “fastball.”
“We can play better, we can play much better than that,” Dean said. “It was a disappointing start to the game. You certainly don’t want to give away goals that early in the game, but that can happen. Especially when teams come out fighting like that so early in the game, little slips can always happen. We were on an upward battle for the majority of the game and they defended well. But I think we’ve shown this year we can come back against good teams, so to come back that way [tonight] is a really great performance in the end.”
The Phoenix will play Georgia Southern University Thursday night in the Southern Conference semifinals in Cary, North Carolina.