Spartans Conclude Season In SSC Tournament
SAINT LEO, Fla. - The University of Tampa men's soccer team traveled north to Saint Leo University take on the Rollins College Tars in the 2015 Sunshine State Conference Championship Semi-final. After 90 minutes of action, Tampa fell to Rollins3-2 and closed out its season Friday afternoon.
The frist half of play was relatively uneventful though the Tars peppered Spartan keeper Christian Knight with 11 first half shots. UT managed to register four half shots on their own, but to no avail both sides were deadlocked 0-0.
Both sides saved all of the offensive fireworks for the second half, as it was a back and forth affair with neither side willing to see their SSC Championship hopes come to a close. Tampa opened the scoring as Nikolai Hammer notched his third goal of the year as to give UT a 1-0 lead at the 57-minute mark. Rollins would come roaring back putting up three in a ten-minute span, as Tosan Popo tallied scores at the 72 and 82-minute marks. Scoring the third of the Tars goals was Alexis Martinez at the 80-minute mark.
The Spartans refused to go easy into the night and cut Rollins lead to one goal, at the 82-minute mark where Hammer registered his fourth goal of the season. Tampa was unable to equalize and was eliminated from the SSC Championship after the final whistle.
Nikolai Hammer was named to the All-Tournament team, he was the only Spartans selected.
UT ends the 2015 season where they had five losses that were decided by two or fewer goals and finished second in the Sunshine State Conference regular season standings. When asked about his team's performance this season head coach Adrian Bush said " I'm happy about the progress the team made this year especially losing five guys in the last month of the season, and to finish second in the SSC says a lot about the work our players put in". For more information on men's soccer visit www.tampaspartans.com.
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