One step forward, two steps back.
After a strong 4-0 win on Friday afternoon, Colorado Mesa University suffered a devastating 0-1 loss against Colorado School of Mines.
“A loss is a loss, now we have a bit of work to do (for) the rest of the season and we have some work to do (for) the conference tournament,” Head Coach Andrew Conniff said.
With this is mind, the Mavericks need to regather and focus on a number of things in order to finish out the season on top.
Throughout the first half the Mavericks really struggled to get something going. CSM was a very fast and aggressive team which caused large amounts of complication on the offensive end for CMU.
“Our wings just couldn’t make it to the end lines and cross it,” CMU forward Lawan Abary said. “They won the battle physically and individually they won the challenges; we just couldn’t do that.”
A fast pace, high intensity, offense is something the Mavericks have been trying to live by all season. For the most part, this profile has proven to be true but today, things were different. CMU got off only five shots while Mines had nine shots at Brenden Brown all in the first half.
The Mavericks finished the first half with only two total shots on goal which would be their only shots on goal all match.
The second half began, and nothing really seemed to change. The Mavericks still struggled to keep up and even stay in the game entirely.
“We had a lot of missed opportunist at the end but there’s a next level that we haven’t seen,” Conniff said. “Commitment from some of our players to win a tackle or to communicate to their teammate. Just a commitment to give a little more. That’s been missing from us as a group and as a result we keep flirting with being really good and we just don’t quite cross that threshold.
Commitment and communication are two reoccurring issues that constantly seem to make their way into the Mavericks game plan. The first goal of the afternoon came from CSM’s very own, Jason Zobott, in the 67th minute. This gave the Orediggers a late 1-0 lead that couldn’t be answered.
With this defeat the Mavericks fall to a (9-4-2) records so far this season as well as (4-2-2) in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC).
Colorado Mesa University will travel to Durango, CO to take on a strong Fort Lewis team who’ve already given the Mavericks some trouble earlier in the season
This game will take place on Friday Nov. 1st at 3 p.m.
