A team with lesser coverage in the Cincinnati sports market,
the Xavier University men’s soccer team did something today no other Musketeer
squad has done before it: play in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Xavier fell 4-1 to Indiana today in Bloomington, but the
score doesn’t truly reflect the way the game was played. The Musketeers fought hard the first
half to find the back of he net, tying the score at 1-1 with the No. 16 ranked
Hoosiers. The tie would finally break with just 10 minutes left in the
90-minute match, with an Indiana goal that deflated any Xavier hope. The next
few minutes, mainly garbage time, led to a few extra finishes past the defeated
Musketeers.
To even be in this situation, for Xavier and Cincinnati
soccer in general, is the more impressive feat. This is the first time that Xavier represented the
Atlantic-10 conference as the champions, with coach Andy Flemming turning the
program into something the city can be proud of. The team of young men fields a
GPA of over 3.0, impressive in NCAA Division I athletics.
Xavier played the role of little fish in a big pond by
making it to the Big Dance, but they did so in a way that the school, the fans,
the city, and the sport can be proud.
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