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.

Cal Poly fans didn’t have a lot to cheer about on Sunday. By Owen Main

On Sunday night, in front of a sellout crowd at Alex G. Spanos Stadium, UCSB scored twice in the first half and held-on with ten men for the last 19-plus minutes to defeat Cal Poly 2-0.

In front of 11,075 fans — mostly students — UCSB dominated the first 30 minutes of the game en route to the victory. Cal Poly, who was without at least three key defensive players, struggled to gain traction both literally (the field was still really wet from the weekend rain and football game) and figuratively (the Gauchos dominated possession early-on).

Still, there were a few opportunities in the second half that the Mustangs just couldn’t put into the back of the net. For the Cal Poly faithful, it was a frustrating end to the match, with the UCSB captain taunting the student section and the crowd filing out of the stadium with their heads down.

The emotion

This game is always full of emotion, but I felt like something was missing this time. Perhaps the senior class from last year — George Malki, Mackenzie Pridham, etc… — made a stronger connection with the fans. Last season, the stadium was full a full hour ahead of the match. This season, students were still filing in during the national anthem. Whatever the reason, it didn’t quite feel the same, despite the sellout.

The shushing

UCSB scored early in this match and gave the crowd the single finger shushing sign. For whatever reason, the crowd seemed to obey for most of the rest of the game.

Any other crowd might have taken the shushing as a reason to get louder, which is why the second UCSB goal was such a dagger. Sure, there were chants, there was a random cell phone light thing, and there were the typical taunts of the opposition’s goalie. But there wasn’t anything sustained or filled with passion, as there has been in previous years.

On a side note, who decided to make the UCSB match a 5:00 pm game on a Sunday afternoon? Whoever does must hate sports and America, but I digress. I guess my point is that I felt like something was missing. Was it just me?

The throwing

I don’t want to get into a huge discussion of tortillas. Tortilla throwing has become something UCSB soccer and, by proxy, the Big West Conference hangs its hat on. It’s a tradition unlike any other and the only time in a match where I’ve ever seen items being thrown onto the field of play allowed — or in this case, downright encouraged.

What I don’t understand is the outrage. One media member from Santa Barbara on the sideline found a piece of something that wasn’t a tortilla that had been thrown on the field.

“They threw this at our goalie,” he told me.

“Yeah, throwing things on the field is pretty lame I said.”

He agreed.

“Tortillas too, right?” I asked.

Whoa whoa whoa.

He tried to tell me tortillas were fine but throwing other things onto the field during the game wasn’t ok. So, here’s my point. Once things are allowed to be thrown onto the field — at the players on either team — during the game, it sets a dangerous precedent. It’s hard to split hairs at that point, especially when UCSB is playing an away game.

Whoever threw the metal thing (looked like maybe a lighter??) onto the field is an idiot who should have been ejected immediately. But so, too, should fans who throw ANYTHING at players while the game is going on — whether it’s a tortilla or not.

The three seconds

Earlier this season, I was picking the brain of a former Cal Poly soccer player about the anatomy of a penalty kick. He told me that after the referee blows his whistle, the penalty taker should always count to three before his run-up to take the kick. I’ve seen two Cal Poly men this season have PK’s saved against them and I don’t know if either has paused prior to the run-up.

Maybe it had nothing to do with it, but contrast it with a penalty kick from the same night in MLS. FC Dallas midfielder Michel is one of the best in the business at penalties. He takes FOREVER in this one (starting at about 1:45 of the video). The official even has to blow his whistle a second time to get him to start his run-up. Not surprisingly, he buries the shot in the back of the net.

The aftermath

Cal Poly is now in fourth place with a trip to rugged UC Davis in front of them. The game is on Wednesday afternoon at 2:00pm, and everything is on the line. To make the conference tournament, they’ll need to win and possibly hope for a UCSB win over Sacramento State. There are a number of scenarios, but winning is the key…

Photos by Owen Main

To view photos on iPad/iPhone, Click Here