Mort, Eagles earn conference win over Gardner Webb
Friday, October 29, 2010 at 10:14AM By David Thackham
On a night that could have been much worse for the Eagles, the Winthrop men’s soccer team survived an onslaught of late offense from the Gardner Webb Bulldogs to earn a key conference win and keep their dim postseason hopes alive.
The Eagles prevailed 2-1 against the fourth ranked Bulldogs, snapping a three-game losing streak and bringing some well-needed confidence back into the locker room.
“We’re fortunate and had a lot of luck tonight, which is good because we haven’t had a lot of that this year,” said head coach Richard Posipanko.
The match was billed as Senior Night, but lone senior Miquel Casajuana was a footnote compared to the performance of sophomore forward Josh Mort.
Sophomore Forward Josh Mort
Mort scored his first career goal, sealing the most important win of the 2010 season.
The Eagles came into the night wounded, after having lost an overtime-heartbreaker to Coastal Carolina and the services of their defensive rock Daniel Di Biagio to a suspension.
Twenty-one minutes in, the pressure finally caught up with the Eagles.
Gardner Webb freshman Stephen Maxwell floated a looping corner to the back post
to a Bulldog who reflected the ball across goal. The ball then hit an Eagle midflight, ricocheting past goalkeeper Michael Flato and putting Winthrop down by one.
The early goal energized the visiting team.
Bulldog midfielder Nicolas Wrobel wriggled his way into the six-yard box and was presented with a point blank shot but inexplicably missed wide right, leaving the Eagles stunned to have dodged such a bullet.
But what Winthrop lacked in opportunities, they made up in efficiency.
Realizing there were only 10 seconds left in the first period of play, Eagle winger Tomas Brennan quickly challenged a Gardner Webb defender and won a corner.
Immediately, the sophomore put the ball back in play, lofting a picture perfect cross to striker Adam Skonicki.
Skonicki buried the ball just as the horn to signal halftime blew.
Winthrop went into the break elated and rejoined the action with a new sense of purpose as they attempted to complete the comeback.
“We made adjustments after halftime, pushed some people forward and tried to go for it,” said Posipanko.
Casajuana tried to take the game into his own hands with a close free kick, which sailed over the wall of defenders, but into the arms of Bulldog keeper Adam Garcia.
After halftime, Mort became the hero of Eagle Field when his timely rebound off of a saved header from Nick Kowalski gave Winthrop their first lead of the game.
Like giants awakened from their slumber, Gardner Webb unleashed a plethora of potential scoring chances, highlighted by one shot that rolled through the legs of Winthrop’s goalkeeper, only to be cleared off the line by Man of the Match Mort.
Perhaps the visitors could consider themselves unlucky not to be given a break after Maxwell burst into the box late in the game and was bundled over by a Winthrop defender, but awarded no penalty kick.
Controversy of the call aside, the Eagle defense kept solid and finally earned a win that will help both Winthrop’s conference record and playoff seeding.
The Eagles improve to 5-9-1 on the season and 3-4 in conference action. On Saturday, Winthrop plays host to Marshall University as a warm-up to their final Big South game against the UNC Asheville Bulldogs at 1 p.m.
