Ryan Griffin battling for the ball against Alvaro Yusty of Barry University in the SSC Final. A. Sanford/The Minaret
The No. 2 seed University of Tampa Spartans were shut out for the first time all year as the Barry Buccaneers won the SSC championship by the score of 2-0.
Mark Anderson, the tournament’s most outstanding player, sealed the deal against Tampa at the 84th minute as he put a shot past Ryan Thompson from the top of the box.
Anderson trailed the play and a deflection came right to him. Without a thought, he was able to put it in the top corner of the net past the Defensive Player of the Year Thompson.
Just three minutes later, Tampa was pressing with an offensive attack. A shot from the UT offense was deflected by Joao Garcia.
Barry’s Anderson was able to take the rebound across midfield where he hooked up with Mark Kilpatrick in a two-on-one break away.
Anderson fed Kilpatrick, and Kilpatrick was able to put it past Thompson for the second goal of the game.
The Spartans controlled the offense virtually the entire game. “We gotta finish,” said Adrian Bush, head coach. “You can have all the chances you want, if you don’t finish they mean nothing.” Tampa finished with 23 shots, six on goal, while Barry managed 14 shots and seven on goal.
For Thompson, the two goals allowed were just his 13th and 14th allowed of the year while also marking 74 saves to date.
Pascal Milien, National Player of the Year candidate, had a few good looks tallying six shots total in the match, but was unable to add to his team leading 11 goals.
Lister Warren, tied with Milien for 11 goals, and Greg O’Connor also had good looks for the Spartans. Warren and O’Connor had eight shots total, four of which were on goal.
“We’ll play Barry again,” said Bush. “[Our guys] will get a chance to redeem themselves against the team that just beat them on our home field on Friday night.”
The Division II selections for the Regional Tournament were released Monday, Nov. 10.
Tampa was paired against Lynn.
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Coach Bush felt that Tampa lacked emotion through much of the game until their backs were against the wall late. “If they wanna play with emotion, then we’ll have a pretty successful postseason,” he said. “If they don’t, we’ll be back on Friday night and they’ll be in their rooms enjoying their weekend.”
Lynn University was previously ranked No. 1 in the nation before they came to Pepin stadium in Tampa.
The Spartans took down Lynn with by the score of 2-1 in double overtime. Tampa tallied 11 quality shots on goal in the match with goals from Ryan Griffin and Milien.
Milien’s came in the second overtime to give the Spartans the automatic win.
Lynn has two of the three leading goal scorers in the SSC conference. Paulo Vaz leads the conference with 17 goals and Kyle Conrad has scored 14.
The player that hurt Tampa most in the SSC championship is the No. 2 leading goal scorer, Anderson. He has 16 goals.
With a win Friday, Nov. 13 Tampa would advance to play against the winner between Rollins and Barry.
The Spartans will need to bounce back in large fashion to stay in contention and make a push for any future in the post season.
Kyle can be reached minaret.sports@gmail.com.
Lister Warren goes for the header. Abby Sanford/The Minaret
