Soccer Nationals

By: Dylan Thomas

On Saturday, November 21, Waldorf’s men soccer fell short against Oklahoma Wesleyan Eagles in the first round of the NAIA National Tournament.

In the first period with 13 minutes, 37 seconds left until halftime, the Eagles made their first goal, and following just a short 71 seconds later, made their second goal. Going into second half, The Eagles scored three more goals, shutting out the Warriors, ending the game 5-0. At the conclusion of the game, The Eagles goalkeeper had a total of six saves, while the Warriors goalkeeper, Junior Cory Stephens, had a total of ten saves.

Following the win against Gwinnett the previous weekend, and winning the Association of Independent Associations title, put Waldorf in the first round of the NAIA National Tournament. Freshman Jose Beltran stated making it to the national tournament was special because “we were playing the number one ranked team in the nation, in the first round, so it was going to be a great upset if we beat them, plus this was Waldorf’s first time ever making it to a national tournament.”

Freshman Ted Langat added to Beltran that “being paired with the number one team in the nation seemed somehow tough and unfortunate.” “The expectations going into that game were that we were going to get dominated and they were going to control the game. We just planned to hold them off and wait for a mistake to allow them to score,” Beltran explained. Coming from this big game, both Beltran and Langat agree there is much to take away from this experience. “For next season it will help in recruiting because more athletes will realize Waldorf has a good program, making the coach’s job easier, having that achievement backing them up,” Beltran said. For Langat, the game was used for training methods. “Now that we have faced big teams, and know how they play, we’ll have to train hard to counter their play next time and learn from our failures to go a step higher than where we are.”

“This season has so far been the best in my career by seeing the team bond, playing together, working hard, shows how far we’ve come and where we are going,” Langat smiled. Beltran topped that off saying “the end of the season we accomplished amazing things which made it overall a successful season overall.”