The game is tied with just over a minute to go in regulation as drizzle began to hit Walker Field during Friday’s contest between Colorado School of Mines and Colorado Mesa University’s men’s soccer teams.
The Orediggers and Mavericks were tied at 1 when Mines’ David Bolt sent a free kick over to the CMU 18-yard box. Almost in perfect synchrony fans heard the P.A. announce there was one minute left in regulation as they also heard the ball bristle the back of the net after Jason Zobott headed in the goal.
For the first time this season, the plug was pulled on CMU’s heavy-metal flow of the offense as the Orediggers physicality propelled them to an upset win over the No. 6 Mavs 2-1.
“Yeah it was a tough loss,” Head coach Todd Padgett said. “Obviously when you lose in the last minute the way that we did it’s always tough, but credit goes to Mines they made things difficult for us on the night and. It was a good match of soccer; they were obviously physical. It made things difficult on us.”
The physicality Mines brought was the perfect counter to CMU’s pace. Fouls were not uncommon as a total of 26 was given out by the officiating crew.
“It made things difficult on us,” Padgett said. “I didn’t think we handled the physicality the way that we wanted to and needed to, but that’s them. We know their M.O. I don’t think they were a whole lot different than we thought they would be. It’s a little bit anti to what we do and how we play, but at the same time it’s effective soccer.”
Effective indeed. Mines struck first thanks to a John Haist goal that beat both the defenders and goalkeeper Briley Guarneri. However, CMU only trailed for exactly a minute. Kevin Del Mazo linked up with the head of Benji Delgadillo for the second straight week; this time thanks to a corner kick delivery that set up Delgadillo’s second goal of the season and put the game back on level terms for CMU before the last-minute winner.
Following the winning-goal, Guarneri stayed down injured, prompting Padgett to come out to check on his player. The coach also had a discussion with the officiating crew which was a common occurrence throughout the game. Moshe Perez was booked for arguing in the 26th minute and Padgett himself earned CMU’s bench a yellow card after arguing with ref Mines’ players were getting away with pushing CMU players in the back.
“The reason you lose games is never due to the officials, so that’s certainly not the case,” Padgett said. “But that said I thought the management of the game was pretty poor on their side of things. I thought it could’ve been a little better, but that’s the game. I mean you got to work yourself through things like that and we didn’t do a good job of that.”
CMU will look to shake off their first setback of the year on Sunday when they host the No. 18 Regis Rangers in a rematch of last year’s RMAC Tournament Final.
