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Six Yeomen score as OC smashes Lake Erie

Big win after loss to Kenyon snaps losing streak at four games

by Geoff Mulvihill

In two games this week, the men's soccer team faced some of the toughest and the weakest competition it's likely to see this season.

The results were two shut-outs, a 4-0 loss Saturday at Kenyon College and a 6-0 win Tuesday over a hapless Lake Erie College team.

At Lake Erie, Oberlin's defense was mostly solid. The Yeomen allowed just one goal in the first half of the game against the team which is currently ranked fourth among Division III schools in Ohio.

Coach Chris Barker said the Oberlin defense stopped Kenyon's progress but struggled to set up a transition game, so it usually took Kenyon just a few passes to take the ball back. Kenyon managed 22 shots during the game.

"I was really pleased with out defensive effort against Kenyon, but that's all we did," Barker said.

Oberlin managed only one shot on goal and only controlled the ball for a few minutes of the game. The sole shot came on a breakaway by senior midfielder Josh Adams.

It was pretty much the same story Tuesday - but Oberlin was in the dominant position.

All six Yeoman goals came in the first half - and they came from six different players - first-year John Wilson, junior Sam Krasnow, junior Mateo Massanet, Adams, first-year Steve Kehler and sophomore Mike Buckler.

Not all the goals were impressive. After the game, Adams described his, which went through Lake Erie's goalkeeper's legs this way: "You know Oscar the Grouch's worm on `Sesame Street?' There was an episode where he had a race across the country with another worm. My goal was just like that. I was just the faster worm."

Oberlin managed 45 shots on goal in the game to Lake Erie's one. And that one was a dribbler that made its way to senior goalkeeper David Kumpe - an act of generosity on the part of the scorekeeper.

The Yeomen controlled the ball the entire game against a much slower team that had only two players on its bench.

"It's tough playing a team that's so much weaker," Barker said. "It was a good win for us in terms of a confidence-builder."

Kehler, who notched his first goal at Oberlin, said Lake Erie didn't measure up to a lot of teams he played earlier in his career. "They really didn't have a lot of stuff going for them," he said. "I don't think they had the determination of a lot of teams I played in high school."

Reserve players played most of the second half for the Yeomen. Unlike the first half, the shots in the second half didn't reach the back of the net. Instead, they slid off to the side or bounced off the goals.

And the strategy was less scoring-oriented in the final act. The Yeomen worked at playing one- and two-touch soccer. So many Yeomen were on their offensive end of the field that there wasn't as much room to maneuver offensively.

The players who nearly scored in the second half represented a different set of players than those who scored in the first half.

The win broke Oberlin's three game losing streak and brought their overall record to 2-4.

The Yeomen have another home game Saturday, against Shawnee State University. Then, the team has a week of practice before the next match, a conference game against Earlham.


Photo:
Getting a kickSophomore Jabali Sawicki lines up for a pass during the Yeomen's thumping of Lake Erie. The Yeomen opened with six goals int first half(photo by John Matney)


Oberlin

Copyright © 1996, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 125, Number 3; September 20, 1996

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