KENOSHA, Wis. – The Carthage College Red Men overcame the weather and a 1-0 halftime deficit to defeat Carroll University, 2-1, Wednesday night to earn at least a share of the 2016 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin regular season title and the number-one overall seed in next week's 2016 CCIW Men's Soccer Tournament.
"Tonight's match was as messy as the weather," said head coach
Steve Domin following the win. "We probably shouldn't have played because the of the conditions but it seems like we have played in the rain all year at home."
The win moves the Carthage, who is ranked #11 in the country, to 15-3 overall and 7-0 in the CCIW with one game remaining, while Carroll falls to 6-10-1 and 2-5-0 in the league.
Wednesday night also marked senior night for Red Men's
Austin Bitta,
Justin Luna and
Connor Hogan, who each played their final regular season home game at Art Keller Field. The senior class is guaranteed at least one more home game as the CCIW Tournament opener will be played in Kenosha next Wednesday against the number-four seed, whom is still to be determined.
"Interesting that we went down in the first half when we were owning big parts of the field. And it seemed like every time we built an attack we were going to score. But not scoring on your opportunities always makes you to start biting your fingernails… Sahr picked a great time to connect on a long-range bullet that woke the place up. After that we started to roll," pointed out the head coach.
Trailing 1-0 at half after,
Sahr Mahoney got the equalizer in the 48th minute for the Red Men after intercepting a giveaway by the Pioneers, which he ripped from 20 yards out and beat a diving Nick Drew to the front post to tie the game at 1-1 with his second goal of the season.
Then, in the 70th minute,
Alberto Eloyza cleaned up a miss played corner from
Austin Bitta by the Carroll keeper to give Carthage the 2-1 lead with what proved to be the game-winning goal.
Wednesday's win clinched a share of the third regular season title in program history and the first since 2011. A win or a draw by Carthage or a loss or draw by North Park University on Saturday will give the Red Men the outright title.
The Red Men will look to win the outright regular season title when Carthage hits the road for the 2016 regular season finale on Saturday with a trip to Augustana College.
"For a conference championship, this was about as pedestrian as it gets. Don't get me wrong, stacking these championships on top of each other is exciting but this group wants a lot more. This team wants to close it out, so we know we have another test on the road ahead."
