On a chilly night at the McClimon soccer complex, the Wisconsin men's soccer team improved it's overall record to 8-7-0 when they defeated instate rival Marquette (6-6-0 overall, 3-1-1 Conference USA) by a score of two to one. In a tense game the Badgers were able to score their only two goals in the first half as Marquette also put themselves on the board late in the first half.
Marquette felt some of the pain that the Badgers felt in the loss of senior forward Jed Hohlbein to a red card last week in the 3-0 loss to Indiana. Marquette junior forward Danny Mullin apparently made unwise comments to the officials which included some choice language. This was the first of two red cards the Eagles would receive in the game. The second came with only moments to play in the second half when freshman mid-fielder Bryan Dahlquist also received one.
\I was a little bit surprise,"" Head Coach Jeff Rohrman said. ""I think that the referees interpretation of the language rule was maybe a little bit different than what the teams perspective on that rule is, I was just afraid that maybe we were going to get a guy tossed for that, unfortunately we kept our head a little bit and we didn't ... [The referee] definitely exercised the rule to the letter of the law, as opposed to the spirit.""
Although the Eagles were playing a man down, they were still able to put a lot of pressure on Wisconsin's junior goalkeeper Eric Hanson. Hanson was able to make all five of his saves in the first half.
""I think we kinda got lulled in that we were a man up and we were dominating them pretty good,"" Hanson said. ""Their goal came against slow play that had chances but really they weren't that dangerous, I think we kinda just got laxidasical.""
Unfortunately for Hanson the Eagles were able to put a notch on the board when freshman forward Matt Blouin was able to transfer an assist from substitute senior mid-fielder Brian Schnell into a point.
Wisconsin's first goal of the half came at almost the eight-minute mark when a failed clear was headed over the Eagles approaching goal keep and into the net by sophomore forward Phil Doeh. This was his second goal of the year.
The second score of the game was no less exciting when junior forward Nick Van Sicklen passed to freshman forward Matthew Jelacic and hit his teammate with a perfect shot right on the foot, past an approaching defender. Jelacic was able to shoot the ball into the net in what could only be described as a textbook-perfect play. The second half, on the other hand, was anything but perfect as the Badgers failed to capitalize on their one-man advantage.
""I don't think it was a great performance on our part by any means, I don't think we took advantage of being a man up,"" Rohrman said. ""We weren't playing like a team and I think we should have been more in control of this game. Having said that I thought we did a good job in having created those two goals. We took those chances real well and those were our only shots on goal in the first half ... We're happy about the win but at the same time we know we didn't perform as well as we should have.""
