Box Score The Carthage College men's soccer team (14-5-2, 5-1-1 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin) won the 2011 CCIW Men's Soccer Tournament on Saturday night, Nov. 5 with a 3-2 win, in overtime, over North Park University (11-3-3, 4-2-1) in the tournament's title game at Carthage's Art Keller Field in Kenosha, Wis.  The Red Men, the regular-season champions, were the top-seeded team in the tournament, with the Vikings seeded second. 
 
Carthage defeated fourth-seeded Elmhurst College (8-7-4, 3-2-2 CCIW), 4-3, on Wednesday night, Nov. 2 in a semifinal game, also at Art Keller Field.  North Park edged third-seeded Wheaton College (Ill., 10-8-2, 4-2-1 CCIW), 2-1, in the other semifinal contest at the Holmgren Athletic Complex in Chicago.  The Red Men's last three wins, going back to the regular-season finale at Illinois Wesleyan University on Oct. 29, have all been overtime affairs.
 
In front of a raucous crowd of 627, about evenly divided between Carthage fans and “Carlson Crazies,” the Red Men took an early lead when Greg Pignataro (Sr., Algonquin, Ill./Jacobs) scored his seventh goal of the year, unassisted, at 9:35.  “At the start of the game,” said Carthage coach Steve Domin, “headed into the wind, I thought we were going to get an education from a very strong North Park team, but us scoring first settled things down.”  The Vikings answered six minutes later when Kris Grahn scored his sixth season goal, assisted by Flip Lindmark, at 15:27 to tie the game at 1-1. 
 
Mike Heika (So., Inverness, Ill./Palatine-Fremd) scored for the Red Men at 48:24 to open the second period, giving Carthage a 2-1 lead.  The Vikings tied thing up again, 2-2, at 62:20 on a goal by Markus Fodstad, assisted by Lindmark.  That's the way things stayed through the end of regulation.  The Red Men won the contest five minutes and thirty seconds into the overtime when Christian Harvey (So., Woodstock, Ill.) scored his first goal of the year, assisted by Billy Hamilton.  Carthage out-shot North Park, 18-15.  “Give some credit to North Park,” said Domin. “They just never went away.  We probably could have played for another 40 minutes trading attacks.  I was concerned trying to shut down the best player in America in Jonas Pettersson, and trying to find a game plan to defeat a team that we just beat eight days ago, but Will Veliz and Zak Khoshbin were up to the test on the defensive end.  There are no days off in the CCIW, and tonight highlighted that."
 
“Doubt is interesting thing to cast on a group,” said Domin.  “After our first two games, and losing the bulk of our returning starters to injuries, we struggled to find an identity.  This win cemented what we are, which is the 'can do kids.'  Frankly, I just want to make sure the experience is fun for the boys and share the minutes.  Too often, they have to live up to everyone else's expectations, but tonight, they lived up to their own.  This group used that doubt, and built on it the whole season.  I feel like I talk about it every week, but our league is just so tough.  Although we were on the right side of this win tonight, North Park has been on their fair share as well.”
 
"The CCIW should have three teams in the NCAAs,” concluded Domin.  “I know that's a long shot, but the games played in our conference are the biggest games we play all year, and we played one of the toughest schedules in the country.  You could substitute any of the teams in our league into this match and probably get the same result.  Tonight marked the 300th time I have been on the sidelines when a Carthage team has won, including the women's games I coached.  I am certainly proud of 300 wins in my career, but it means more to me that it happened on the day the CCIW regular-season champions won the CCIW tournament final.  That doesn't happened too often"
 
With the win, Carthage earned the league's automatic qualifier to the NCAA Division III Men's Soccer Championship.  The NCAA will announce the 61-team field, along with sites for first and second-round games, on Monday, Nov. 7 at Noon, CDT.