St. Thomas University Men's Soccer is heading back to the Sun Conference Championship game after a thrilling 5-4 shootout victory against the no. 3 seeded Southeastern University Fire on a windy Tuesday afternoon from AutoNation Field. The Bobcats will get the opportunity to defend their title as back-to-back tournament champions.
In a game that had it all on the defense and offense, it missed the key component of a goal. St. Thomas pushed strongly and applied tons of pressure, but the Fire defense would not let one get through to the back of the net. Franco Acerbi, the Bobcat goalkeeper did a tremendous job in the first half coming up with a big save and had help from Noah Tolcachier wo deflected a rebound in the 24th minute. St. Thomas had a similar opportunity in the 40th minute but were denied by the Fire keeper Carlos Curado.
After 45 minutes of play and still no goal both teams took the halftime period to regroup and strategize their tactics. St. Thomas was able to restructure their offensive approach and get 13 shots in the second half and six corner kick opportunities. Curado a relentless keeper continued to hold the Bobcats scoreless.
The Bobcat defensive stats do no justice as the tag team of Tolcachier, Juan Manuel Collazo, Nicolas Bertuleit, Soeren Zeidler and Hernando Suarez had countless perfect slide tackles and flicks to kill any Fire threat before a shot would even be able to get off. The defensive line has cut off many counters and one-on-ones threats this season which led to the 11th shutout of the season, sixth straight.
After 110 minutes of play, no goal was able to find the back of the net sending the game to a penalty kick shootout. It was going to be a tough battle against two of the toughest keepers in the Sun Conference. Ben Becker got things going making the first penalty kick and gain the advantage as Southeastern missed their first round shot when the ball trickled just a bit wide right.
Round two would be made by both teams with Fernando Arzeno making his shot for St. Thomas. The SEU goalkeeper would make a big save to level the playing field blocking midfielder Guido Cacciabue. After two successful rounds from both sides, it would be Facundo Cisterna to take round six for the Bobcats a successful bank in would set the scene for the graduate student goalkeeper, Franco Acerbi. All eyes were on the man in all green with teams stopping practice to head to the field and cheer the Bobcats.
In a post-game interview, Acerbi walked us though and mentioned that he saw the Fire player look at the right side and he went with his gut and took the leap of faith. That leap went with the low right corner when the Bobcat keeper would come up with one of the biggest saves in his career to send STU back to the Sun Conference Final.
St. Thomas will match up with the no. 1 seeded Keiser Seahawks for the third straight season in the championship game. The game will be played in West Palm Beach on Friday. The last meeting was to close out the regular season where STU took it 2-0 on AutoNation Field.
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