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Freshman George Kephart works hard to help his team.Fall sports teams wrap up season
The end of October means championship play for Vikings
By Ruth Rachel Przybojewski
With the beginning of every new season, the door closes for another. The quest for championship crowns began for three Viking sports the weekend of Oct. 28.
Men’s Soccer
The team entered tournament play as the No. 5 seed. The Vikes headed to No. 4 Loyola on Oct. 28. Coming off two regular season wins, coach Ali Kazemaini said the team was playing with a lot of confidence at the perfect time of the year, and hoped it would continue into tournament play.
Unfortunately, the magic would not last for the boys. Their season ended with a 3-2 loss at Loyola in the Horizon League Championship Quarterfinals.
CSU fell behind 3-0 before making its comeback in the second half. Leading the way was freshman Josh Williams and sophomore Nenad Stojkovic who each scored a goal. But it just wasn’t enough to get the job done.
Coach Kazemaini finished his first season at CSU 6-10-2, which is a great improvement compared to the win less 2005 campaign.
Kazemaini, who started at least seven freshmen every match this season, said that the players got great experience this year. This experience will help the team bring a championship brand of soccer back to CSU in the coming years.Women’s Soccer
On Oct. 25, women’s soccer ended the regular season with a 3-1 loss to Youngstown State. The team had no time to breathe because tournament play began on Oct. 28.
The Vikings faced regular season champion UW-Milwaukee. The Vikes gave it their all. Sophomore Lisa Conway evened the score in the 30th minute of play. But, UW-Milwaukee crushed the team’s efforts with three goals in the second half. The team was sent home with a 4-1 loss in the opening round of Horizon League Championship.
With only three years of intercollegiate competition at CSU, the team went 3-17. Head coach Derrek Falor said that despite only winning three games, the team accomplished a lot this season. He believes that the team was better now than at the start of the season, and the team was better at the beginning of the season compared to the past two seasons.Women’s Cross Country
The women’s cross country team headed to Indianapolis on Oct. 28 for the Horizon League Championship. Despite the muddy conditions, the squad placed 8th in the team standings. This was the first time in a decade that the Vikings finished ahead of another team at the league meet.
It was no surprise that freshman Caitlan Ebner, who led the team in each of their eight meets, was the first to finish the 5K championship course in 21:00, for a 36th place finish.
Freshman, Colleen Conway was not far behind with a time of 21:23 finishing in 42nd.
The rest of the team clocked in starting with junior Christina Swierz (21:57, 54th) followed by sophomores Madeline Singer (22:12, 61st) and Audrey Piotrowski (23:39, 66th). Closing out the race were Seniors Douglas (23:02, 71st) and Shannon Graves (23:35, 75th).
