Grizzlies use second-half flurry to dispatch Hounds

The Eastern New Mexico men’s soccer team was handed its first loss of the season Wednesday, coming up one score short of Adams State, 3-2.

Despite playing Adams (3-0) to a first half draw, the Greyhounds found themselves down 3-0 with only 15 minutes of play left.

The first half saw a lethargic Greyhound (1-1-1) team that only recorded one shot on goal during the first 45 minutes of play. The Grizzlies (3-0) on the other hand, seemed to be all over the field, pushing on the offensive end and recording four shots, making the ENMU defense work a little extra in the early going.

Staff photo: Matthew Asher

ENMU junior forward Omary Shabani fights for possession against Adams State in the first half of Wednesday’s afternoon match.

Team captain Ryan McManus said, “Personally I think after watching them play we were quite confident, but we were confident before that and after we watched them, it didn’t really change anything. We didn’t perform and I don’t think we played at our level; we played at theirs.”

He was referring to the fact that Adams played a neutral site game Monday against the University of Texas-Permian Basin at Greyhound Stadium, where the ENMU team was in attendance. Adams won that contest 4-3.

Assistant coach Jehmaine Brooks said, “The guys thought they were going to go in and walk all over them and then it backfired. You can’t go into a game thinking you’re going to walk over any team. What happens is the other team comes around and works harder. So we simply got out worked because our guys were not mentally prepared for the game.”

The second half started with three straight Adams goals, putting the Greyhound in an immediate and deep hole to climb out of. Eastern did try just that, coming back in the last 11 minutes with two goals of their own off a Robert Raspudic header and a Ignacio Dicun chip shot during a scramble in front of the goal.

But the effort came to late as the clock became the biggest opponent on the field for the Hounds.

Forward Omary Shabani echoed that thought, saying, “Well we just pushed and could have done better, but the first half we came out and didn’t do that well. Then for the last 15 minutes their, we did well and tried to come back, but down 3-0 its just to late.”

There was no question ENMU dominated the game in those last 15 minutes once they found themselves trailing by such a large deficit. There is something to be said of fighting back like the team did when looking at the score, but as the coaching staff and players all said after the match: Too little, too late.

“We were so poor all day, whether they deserved three goals or not. . . We can’t give ourselves a job to do like that. We will all have to take a good look at ourselves. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise — maybe everyone will take a good, hard look at themselves and we can really head into this week to train hard. So lets hope this kicks us, maybe even inspires us a little bit,” said McManus.