St. Mary's Game Recap - Sept. 29, 2007

Gameday Scoreboard:

Team	1	2	Final
	0	0	0
	0	2	2

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Gameday Game Recap:

MOORHEAD, Minn. (9/29/07)-- The great big elephant that was sitting in the middle of the room and no one wanted to talk about finally got up and crashed through the door. After 35 games, 3,200 minutes played and 1,433 calendar days, Concordia has finally won a conference game. The Cobbers thoroughly dominated St. Mary's, outshooting the Cardinals 32-4 en route to the 2-0 historic victory. The win snaps a three-year MIAC drought that dated back to Oct. 25, 2003. It is the longest streak in MIAC men's soccer history and second longest in MIAC soccer history (Hamline women had a six-year winless streak from 1994-1999).

Not only did the win bust apart the conference winless streak it also broke up a six-game winless streak Concordia had put together this season. The only other win for CC was on Sept. 8 when they beat Jamestown 3-1. The shutout is the first for the Cobbers since Sept. 23 of last season when they played to a 0-0 double overtime tie with St. Olaf.

Concordia is now 2-7-1 overall in 2007 and 1-3 in conference play. The loss extends St. Mary's winless streak. They have not won in the past six games. Their last win also came on Sept. 8 when they blanked Northland 3-0. SMU is now 3-7-1 overall and 0-4-0 in the MIAC.

The Cobbers were determined to push the elephant out of the room from the very opening whistle. They pushed the play at the St. Mary's defense and had multiple chances on the Cardinal goal. The only bad news for CC after 45 minutes was despite outshooting St. Mary's 12-3 and having a 4-1 edge in corner kicks, they were still tied at 0-0.

As the tension mounted and the team started to feel the pressure of the winless streak, senior Matt Klein pounded a shot that ended the 0-0 tie, lifted the 8,000-pound weight off the team's back and started a 27-minute long celebration. Klein netted his second goal of the season, and second in the past three games, at the 62:47 mark after collecting a pass from Italian freshman Marco Riboli.

Riboli would then cement Concordia's win by hammering a rocket past the Cardinal goalie at 72:31. For Riboli it was his third goal of the season and gave him a team-leading eight points. Riboli has now scored in each of the Cobbers' two wins this season.

For the final 17 minutes it was more of the Cobber offense starting looking more confident and starting to believe that winning should come naturally. Concordia hit seven more shots after the second goal with the best chance coming off the foot of Kyle Quimby. Quimby put a little shake-n-bake move on at the top of the penalty area to free himself behind the SMU defense but proceeded to hit the post after going in all alone on the goal.

In the end, Concordia held a 32-4 advantage in overall shots and a 16-1 margin in shots on goal. Riboli led the way with seven shots and four shots on net. He now has a team-leading 27 shots this year. Freshman midfielder Tyler Siverson had a career-high six shots attacking from his wing position.

Sophomore goalie Kirby Johnson made one save to earn his first collegiate shutout. It was also his second win of the season. St. Mary's goalie Jon Szafranski collected 14 saves and was saddled with his second loss of the year.

Concordia will have a week off before playing at St. Thomas on Saturday, Oct. 6 at 2 p.m.