Three teams tied for second place in points after the regular season.
After seeding was decided by a tiebreaker, the Fort Lewis College Skyhawks drew the shortest stick for the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference men’s soccer tournament.
Colorado Mines, FLC and Regis all finished 9-5 in RMAC regular-season play, but the Colorado Mines Orediggers were awarded the No. 2 seed behind Colorado Mesa. That gave the Orediggers a bye in the first round of the tournament, while No. 3 Regis and No. 4 FLC are forced to play home games Wednesday to try to reach the semifinals Friday in Grand Junction.
“It’s an unprecedented situation in the RMAC. It tells you how tight it is and how good of soccer is being played in this area of the country,” FLC head coach Oige Kennedy said Sunday after his team’s 1-0 overtime win against Colorado Christian in the regular-season finale.
At that point, Kennedy wasn’t sure where his Skyhawks would end up, but the tiebreaker determined No. 4 FLC (11-7, 9-5 RMAC) would host No. 5 UC-Colorado Springs (9-8-1, 8-6 RMAC). The game will be played at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday at Dirks Field in Durango.
“It’s tough. We finished the regular season in a three-way tie for second. It came down to a whole section of criteria, and we got the four-seed,” Kennedy said Monday in a phone interview with The Durango Herald. “It’s disappointing to drop to four and not get a bye when you have a record good enough to be the two. Still, we’ll be in good form and look to get three wins, and it starts Wednesday.”
UC-Colorado Springs and FLC squared off once in the regular season, with FLC winning 1-0 behind a goal by Malik Badawi on Sept. 26 at Dirks Field.
The Mountain Lions dropped to 2-4-1 overall after the loss, while FLC was off to a strong start at 5-2. But UC-Colorado Springs had a red-hot October, going 7-2 with wins against the likes of No. 6 Metro State and Regis.
“We won that game against them here, but they went on to have a great run and put a lot of wins together after that point,” Kennedy said. “They’ve been consistent and got great results against Regis and Metro.”
The Mountain Lions have been led by James Roberts, who is in a three-way tie for second in goals scored in the RMAC with 11. One of the guys he is tied with: FLC’s Yannis Becker.
“We’re excited to play at home,” Becker said Sunday of hosting a tournament game. “I hope there is a big crowd coming.”
FLC is riding momentum from two consecutive overtime wins, including a 2-1 win at Colorado Mines last Friday.
The return of RMAC preseason all-conference player Alberto Capdepon to the midfield has been huge, after Capdepon missed much of the season with a back injury.
“Capo is a huge influence. When you look at Yannis, Capo and Elliot (Prost) in the middle there, they haven’t lost very many games together in their college career,” Kennedy said of his star midfielders. “They haven’t gotten to play together often with injuries, but when they have, they’ve done really well.”
FLC also received a boost defensively with the return of Marcel Enghardt, a sophomore from Bremen, Germany.
But FLC still is without junior forward Austin Derksen, who was hit by a car while riding his bicycle, and the man who beat the Mountain Lions in September, Badawi.
Tamino Kroeger, who scored six goals early in the season, is slowed by an injury, as well.
FLC took Monday off to rest weary legs with the prospect of playing five games in 10 days. They returned to training Tuesday and hope to be fresh Wednesday in time to make a run toward an RMAC Tournament title.
FLC has won 11 RMAC Tournament championships since 1996, but they haven’t hoisted the trophy since 2011.
“Our main goal is to get that trophy, one step at a time,” FLC sophomore forward Zac Lawrence said.
Kennedy knows what it takes to make a run in a tournament, and the level of play is about to get elevated.
“Fort Lewis is used to getting into tournament play, and the biggest key thing is you have to give everything in every game, because you don’t get another one after it,” he said. “For us, we have to make sure we’re focused on Wednesday and realize we have to give 100 percent of ourselves to make sure we’re playing again Friday. It’s time to put the maximum effort into the first game on the plate.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
