Losing eight games to start a season is usually when most people start thinking about next year.
Midway through this season, the Bowling Green men’s soccer team seemingly decided next season was too long of a wait. After dropping their first eight matches of the season, the Falcons went 5-4 in their final nine games, clinching the Mid-American Conference regular season title with a 1-0 win over Akron on Oct. 27.
As the No.1 seed in the MAC post-season tournament, the Falcons defeated defending MAC champion and perennial post-season rival, Kentucky, in Friday’s semifinal round. Although the Falcons lost in the MAC Championship game, they extended their season longer than anyone thought they would after their slow start.
“The guys never quit working in practice. And sometimes we didn’t have to motivate them. With the leadership between our seniors and Martinka, things turned around. I felt we were good enough to be MAC Champions. It was just a matter of when we could piece the puzzle together,” BG coach Mel Mahler said. “They never quit in training. There was never anybody with their head down or throwing in the towel mentality. All the credit goes to them. What they have experienced right now, they’ve earned it.”
So how did the Falcons turn their season around? They put the few players they had with collegiate experience on the defensive end and went from there.
Seniors Matt Leardini and Damion Bennett and juniors David DeGraff and Matt Martinka were able to hold opposing teams to two goals or less in ten of their last 11 matches.
“We made a change after our eighth consecutive loss. We decided that if anything, we had to stop letting teams score goals on us. Not to blame any one player, we were just a bit too inexperienced in the back,” Mahler said. “So we decided to just put our experience in the back, defend and start from there.”
As the defensive unit stopped opponents, the offense gained experience and started scoring more goals.
“We were just a young team in the beginning of the year. We just had to learn how to play with each other. During the 0-8 start everyone was down, and we just didn’t know what was going on. The coaches and everyone stood behind us,” DeGraff said. “We always knew we had the talent, we just weren’t putting things together when we were 0-8. We grew together as a team after we started playing some conference games.”
Even though the Falcons lose Leardini and Bennett to graduation, they will return 17 players from this season’s squad, including DeGraff.
“In my opinion Dave DeGraff is one of the best goalkeepers in the country, flat out, bar none. He can diffuse a lot of dangerous situations,” Mahler said.
“It’s a wonderful tribute to our players [to be in the MAC Championship]. I knew we’d really have to work very hard and take our lumps along the way and we certainly did that,” Mahler said.
“The players never quit and for us to get this far is a good indication of things to come. We’re excited about the future.”
