Setting goals for increased offense a success
By Ryan Rogers
Sports Editor
September 12, 2007
 After losing 1-0 to the Laurier Golden Hawks and tying 1-1 with the Waterloo Warriors, the University of Windsor’s men’s soccer team knew that if they could strengthen the team’s offense, they could make the team much more successful.
And with that attitude, they set out this weekend to win their first game against the Brock Badgers with a thrilling shutout, 1-0, and then outscored the McMaster Marauders 2-1 on Sunday. With the set of wins this weekend the Lancers jumped into third place in the Western Division, behind the undefeated York and Western teams.
Head coach Steve Hart said, “To be perfectly frank with you, we’ve worked on nothing else this week but offense. It’s all we’ve done. We’ve changed our system a bit. We’ve worked on nothing else but attack. ‘Cause that was our whole problem last weekend, we couldn’t score goals.” Hart believes that the Lancers deserved to start the season with two wins, but had to settle for a tie and a loss, due to a lack of fine-tuning to their offensive game.
Significant adjustments were made to generate new offensive flair. “We played well both games and we should have won both games,” said Hart, “but we really didn’t have the offensive pass. To be honest with you, the guy who scored the goal, Mark Favaro, last week played the right side of defense. So we moved him up, and concentrated on nothing but offense.”
The Lancer’s goal in the game against Brock was scored by Mark Favaro, who did an excellent job staying onside while receiving a pass, splitting two defenders and going in alone for a clear shot at the net.
Said Hart, “It was brilliant, it was absolutely perfect. It was right from the practice field. We practiced breaking from the back like that, and it’s amazing when you practice something and it comes up as sweet as that.”
And without the outstanding play of the Badger’s goaltender, Chris Cutaia, the score could have been quite different. With Lancer strikers setting each other up with cross creases passes, on more than one occasion Cutaia was required to dive and redirect the ball over the net.
After going ahead early in the first half the pressure was on the Lancers to preserve the lead. The coach said, “[The players] got themselves a little bit rattled just before halftime and [they] were shouting at each other, and that’s never a good thing. It gives confidence to the other team. So you’ve got to put it out immediately. So as the head coach you shout out there and hopefully they’re not intimidated by me, and it calms them down, and they realize their mistakes. It’s so intense out there, and we were trying to protect our lead going into halftime. ”
At the half, Hart laid out his expectations for the remainder of the game. He knew Brock was going to bring a lot of pressure, and that the Lancer’s were going to have to preserve their lead and help out goalie Danny Mendonca.
Hart said, “It (the pressure) was intense, we talked about it at halftime, we knew it was going to happen, and we knew how we were going to counter it, and in the end, not unashamedly, we had everybody back,” he laughed. Filling the backfield with as many players as possible, the Lancers kept the Badgers on the perimeter and supported rookie goalkeeper Mendonca for the shutout.
The goal scorers for the Lancers in Sunday’s game against McMaster were Shawn MacFarlane and Ciprian Codea. All the goals in the 2-1 match were scored in the first half, and the Marauders goal was scored by Craig Chittenden.
The Lancers are on the road next weekend playing against the undefeated Western Mustangs in London on Saturday and the Guelph Gryphons on Sunday. Their next home game is Sep 23 against the Western Mustangs.
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