Some notes on the end of the Cal Poly Men’s Soccer season

Steve Palacios held-down the midfield for Cal Poly, playing a steady role as the team’s only senior this season. By Owen Main

Cal Poly men’s soccer was a goal away from winning their regular season finale and earning a birth into the Big West Conference Tournament. Instead, the season ended in heartbreak on Wednesday as UC Davis netted the golden goal, ending the Mustangs’ season.

The 2014 men’s soccer season began with tumult and ended with questions of what could have been.

What if?

For the Mustangs, this season is chalk-full of “what-ifs.”

What if head coach Paul Holocher hadn’t resigned just a few days before the start of training camp?

What if Koda Wakasa or Ruben Duran had been healthy?

What if center backs Brett Foreman and Nick Carroll had been available for so many important Big West North matchups?

What if they’d been able to maintain the two-goal lead they opened-up at rival UCSB?

Soccer is not always a fair game, though. What-ifs are replaced with what actually happened, and the Mustangs fell a little short. They are a young and talented group (Steve Palacios was the only senior on the team), but they just couldn’t overcome key injuries and inconsistency.

What’s next for the program?

This is a program in transition, but it’s also a program with seven players who would have been returning seniors next season (two were injured this year and will technically be juniors next season). If they have a new coach next season, it will be their third coach in as many years.

Like many Cal Poly fans, I’m interested to see what kind of recruiting happened this season, given that the Mustangs played this entire season with an “interim” coach. I don’t know how effective an interim coach can be with recruiting — and it may not matter too much for next year, given that the team only loses one senior, but the long-term ramifications of a coach leaving the way Paul Holocher did can be potentially devastating.

This year’s team came out of the blocks strong. They scored a ton of goals early-on and got fans’ hopes up for a successful conference season, as they have in year’s past. With Phil Ruskin at the helm, there was hope for some continuity and a strong conference run. But the team finished the year with a whimper — losing their final three matches and netting only four points in six Big West North matches.

Phil Ruskin showed promise this season as the team’s interim head coach. He deserves at least another season at the helm. By Owen Main

Will Ruskin be back?

When he was named interim coach just a few days before practice started this season, Phil Ruskin took on an enormous challenge. Early-on, it looked as though the team really responded to him. The Mustangs came out scoring goals and playing an offensive, possession-oriented style of soccer that has been their hallmark. They beat North Carolina State on the road, tied top-ranked UCLA, and started conference play by tying top-5 ranked UC Irvine.

Cal Poly even started Big West Conference play strong. The tie with Irvine was followed by victories at home against Cal State Fullerton and on the road against eventual South Division champion UC Riverside.

The win in Riverside was costly. Brett Foreman, Cal Poly’s most experienced central defender went down against the Highlanders and didn’t return all season. Freshman Nick Carroll was also not available for the next game — a loss at Cal State Fullerton — and the Mustangs struggled to put things together after that. With tons of depth in attacking positions, Cal Poly was paper-thin in central defense. Carroll missed six consecutive matches before returning for the final game.

In place of Carroll and Foreman, midfileders like Matt LaGrassa and Sean Dhillon filled in admirably. Defender Mamadou Kebe was probably a year away from being truly ready for the big-time. Trenton Matson, who I believe ended up playing some, might have been better-served to maintain his redshirt season. Jack O’Connor played all right at left back as well, but the point is that a lot of players who might not have been on the pitch as much saw a lot of time and several players spent significant time in unfamiliar positions over the past six matches.

During those six games (Big West North divisional play), Cal Poly managed just four points, perpetuating a trend of a Cal Poly men’s soccer season that starts with a ton of excitement and ends with disappointment.

What’s next for Ruskin and the program? Cal Poly will likely initiate a nationwide coaching search, though I don’t know that they’ll do a lot better than Ruskin. For what it’s worth, he has always been positive and never seemed to lack confidence. Despite injuries, his teams didn’t look tactically out-matched and his players this season showed a higher level of maturity on the field this year than in seasons past.

The Big West North is a tough, tough division, and this Cal Poly team just couldn’t overcome all their challenges. With only one senior on this season’s roster, it would be very interesting to watch a Cal Poly team at full-strength with Ruskin at the helm next season. For what it’s worth, Cal Poly (according to their roster) had seven key juniors on this team who are set to return next year, including LaGrassa, Chase Minter, Wade Hamilton, Kody Wakasa, Kip Colvey, and Ruben Duran. As a fan, I would probably prefer to give Ruskin at least one more season without the interim tag to both show what he could do with recruiting and to maintain some level of consistency for next year’s senior class, who has been through a ton.

Maybe people want the program to head in a different direction, but I think, for the sake of continuity and snapping up a young, dynamic coach, Cal Poly men’s soccer would be best served to keep Ruskin around next year.