GREENSBORO, NC—For the second time in four seasons the Winthrop men's soccer team will be heading to the NCAA College Cup after it advanced in penalties 3-1 over sixth-seeded High Point, Sunday afternoon at Bryan Park.
Max Hasenstab's netted the penalty that clinched the Eagles fifth Big South Conference Title all-time and sixth trip to the NCAA College Cup. This was the 8th appearance in the championship game of the Big South for Winthrop under head coach
Rich Posipanko.
After a full 90 minutes and two overtime periods the teams were scoreless and headed to penalties. Both teams converted on their first attempts but the next two were either saved or missed. That brought up
James Skonicki and he converted for a 2-1 lead. Winthrop goalkeeper
Fabian Broich stepped up and made his second save of the shootout setting up Hasenstab for the win. Hasenstab ripped his shot into the left side of the goal and the celebration began.
Winthrop will enter the College Cup with an 11-6-2 mark while the Panthers season ends at 8-6-7.
Winthrop looked like it might have ended the game in double overtime when
Nil Vinyals chipped a ball to the backpost where Hasenstab headed the ball with pace toward the top corner but Kody Palmer sprawled out to tip the ball wide in the 107th minute.
In the 82
nd minute the ball was bouncing around in the box and Palmer was caught out of position as it bounced out toward Hasenstab but his shot toward the vacated net was blocked out of bounds for a corner kick by a High Point defender.
High Point tried to snag a late lead when Avery Ryan had a free look inside the box and ripped a low shot that forced Broich to the ground for a diving save in the 85th minute.
In addition to his two saves in the shootout, Broich finished the game with four saves to earn his fourth straight shutout and seventh on the season. Palmer finished with five saves in the game and recorded his eighth shutout of the season.
Hasenstab was named the Big South Tournament's Most Valuable Player and was joined on the all-tournament team by
Jordan Stoddart,
Patrick Barnes and
Jordi Lluch. The selection is the fourth for Lluch, which has never been done in the history of the program.
The NCAA Men's Soccer selection show will be Monday, Nov. 16 at 1 p.m. live on
www.ncaa.com and the team will gather in Richardson Ballroom on campus.
All-Tournament Team
WU – Max Hasenstab (MVP)
WU – Jordan Stoddart
WU – Patrick Barnes
WU – Jordi Lluch
HPU – Cameron Foster
HPU – Kody Palmer
HPU – Adam Storm
UNCA - Andrew Sotak
GWU - Arjun Jung
LWD - Michael Durr
CCU - Colin Marz
CU - Brad Farias
CU - Dan Mukuna
RU - Dan O'Keefe
RU - Sivert Daehile
