Sept. 19, 2010
Final Stats
Contact: Dan Carr
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Manuel Conde recorded his second goal of the season on a penalty kick in the 10th minute of the contest, and Cleveland State held IPFW scoreless for a 1-0 victory on Sunday (Sept. 19).
The win improved CSU to 2-4-0 on the season, while the Mastodons fell to 2-6-0.
The victory also kept alive Cleveland State's home non-losing streak, improving the team to 13-0-3 at Krenzler since the start of the 2008 season. This win was the ninth shutout the Vikings have posted in that stretch.
"The biggest positive was the clean sheet," coach Ali Kazemaini said. "We didn't give up a goal, and our defense didn't give up the big mistake."
CSU goalkeeper Brad Stuver made eight saves to preserve the shutout, but none was bigger than the one at the 55:53 mark.
The Mastodons had their best scoring opportunity of the game when they were allowed a penalty kick of their own after a yellow card was given to Stuver. IPFW's Max Touloute sent the kick towards the upper left corner of the net, but Stuver jumped at just the right time to knock the ball harmlessly away.
"That was a good penalty kick, and Stuver made a great save," Kazemaini said. "That wasn't a case of the other guy kicking it poorly, Stuver just made a great play."
The defense held strong for the rest of the match despite consisting mainly of freshmen.
"Given that we had four freshmen starting in the backfield, our defense played very well," Kazemaini said. "Our players earned the win today. They didn't play perfectly, and luck was on our side. But they worked hard to create that luck, and we earned the win."
Seven of the match's starters were players who were not on the team last season. Six freshmen and Conde, a junior college transfer, started against the Mastodons. Out of 66 total starts through the first six games of the 2010 campaign, 39 have been made by newcomers, the most since 2006, Kazemaini's first season. (43 starts of the first 66 starts that year were by newcomers.)
While his team is still inexperienced, Kazemaini was encouraged by how they performed against IPFW.
"[IPFW] pressured our guys to play back to front in the second half, which is not our style of play," Kazemaini said. "We have to understand how to work around that pressure in the future, but today our guys responded well and avoided the big mistakes that we've made in the last few matches."
Kazemaini's players will get two more opportunities to improve next weekend as the Vikings open conference play on a trip to Illinois. Cleveland State plays UIC on Friday (Sept. 24) at 8:00 p.m. EDT. On Sunday ,Sept. 26, the Vikings will take on Loyola in a 2:00 p.m. EDT contest.
"Those will be two tough games," Kazemaini said. "If we can get at least a split, it will mean we're making good progress."
