MenŐs soccer team loses to Texas Wesleyan

Loss forces the Frogs to refocus their efforts for weekend game

By Victor Drabicky
skiff reporter

After Tuesday night’s 2-1 loss to Division II-A Texas Wesleyan, the TCU men’s soccer team was left looking for answers.

Was it the loss of two starting defensive players to injury?

Was it a week’s worth of lackluster practices?

Was it the fact dusk had set on the unlit Garvey-Rosenthal Soccer Stadium before the game entered the final 10 minutes?

“It has been getting darker and darker on that field,” junior defender Aaron Casey said. “(We know) we have to play through that, but we didn’t.”

The loss extends the Frogs’ losing streak to two games heading into Saturday’s game against the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Freshman defender Andrew Porteous, who was playing in his first TCU game, said the blame for the loss can be spread throughout the entire team.

“Offensively, we couldn’t finish the ball, and you can’t win games if you can’t score,” Porteous said. “Defensively, we had a few lapses which let them score.”

The first of Wesleyan’s two goals came off a corner kick with just over a minute left in the first half to put the Rams up 1-0 heading into halftime.

Junior midfielder Nick Baker said the Wesleyan goal may have broken the Horned Frogs’ spirit.
“Once we got down a goal, all our emotion left us,” Baker said. “We figured out at the end of the game that if we just kept possession, our chances will come, but by then, we were playing with a real lack of heart.”
Wesleyan secured the win by netting a second goal with just under 15 minutes left in the second half. The Frogs did manage one goal late in the half, but could not get closer.

Casey said a week’s worth of poor practices may have led to the loss.

“There has been a real lack of intensity the last couple of days,” Casey said. “Practice has been a little lackluster and it carried into our games against Oral Roberts and Wesleyan.”

Baker said despite focusing on spreading the field during practice, the team could not do it in the game.
“All week long, we have been working on using our outside midfielders, but once the game started, w couldn’t find them,” he said.

The Frogs played Tuesday’s game without starting defenders Michael Martin and Davis Bland because of injuries.

Porteous said despite the injuries, Wesleyan simply wanted the win more than the Frogs did.

“They are a Division II team, and they really look good if they beat a Division I team,” Porteous said. “For us, it is a game we could not afford to lose.”

Casey said the Frogs may have learned about their weaknesses from the defeat.

“We can’t keep giving up two goals a game and expect to win,” Casey said. “We can possess the ball against any team we play, but we need more intensity.”

Casey said although the loss is disappointing, the team needs to forget it and forge ahead.

“Practice doesn’t make perfect,” said Casey. “Perfect practice makes perfect. We need to put this game in the back of our minds and have a good couple of days of practice before Saturday’s game.”

Victor Drabicky
v.m.drabicky@student.tcu.edu

By Danny Horne
sports editor

Two years ago senior Brian Best was playing football for the University of Arkansas. He said the one thing he could remember from the experience was that the Fayetteville, Ark., community and students had pride in the football program.

“Before the games, you would always see a lot of people out tailgating and partying,” he said. “It was just a great atmosphere. You see that at a lot of schools these days, and I think that’s something we should try to implement here.”

So now, Best is trying to organize a tailgate party for TCU football home games. He said he was looking for a place where people could come together and make it an event, not just a football game.

“It’s exciting to have this kind of football program here now,” Best said. “I don’t know that I would have tried to do this before, but I think our student body needs to get more involved and more hyped up.

“We’ve got a top 20 football team, and I think we need to act like it.”

Students like Best are exactly what Brian Florko, assistant director of sports marketing, was looking for after TCU set a school record for season ticket sales last week. The previous record, set in 1985, was 12,056. As of Wednesday, the TCU ticket office had sold 12,600 season tickets.

“This is a top 20 program, so all excuses to not go to a game are gone,” Florko said. “We feel we’ve got something the students can come see, and we’ve really gotten an overwhelming reception.”

Ticket manager Chip Heiss said he hasn’t seen this kind of excitement at TCU since he’s been here.

“We’ve had some excitement over individual games like (University of) Texas (at Austin) in 1984, but never like this,” Heiss said. “We’ve really had steady sales since we started selling season tickets back on May 1, but the last month has been incredible.”

Florko said the sports marketing staff has been working to reach out to the TCU and Fort Worth communities.

“We saw an opportunity because we knew this was a great (football) program,” Florko said. “We had the season tickets record as a goal, and we knew it could be done.”

Florko said he recognized that the focus placed on senior LaDainian Tomlinson, his Heisman Trophy run and the possibility of an undefeated season made it easier to reach the fans.

“It would have been realistic without all the extra focus, but (the added focus) was necessary,” he said. “We want to build a fan base here, but we don’t want this to be a quick fix. We feel that diehard fans will come to see games, and that’s what we’re trying to build with Frog Alley which is marketed toward families, and TCU Village which is marketed toward the corporations.”

Florko said TCU was kicking off the home schedule with a raffle that would award a student $400 per quarter.

Concessions manager Steven Brubaker said other aspects of the football game experience had to be changed and improved.

“Everyone should notice that we’ve become more organized,” Brubaker said. “We plan to make it easier for people to get what they want by putting up more points of sale. We’re here to make money, but we have to offer something the campus and community would be interested in.”

With the first home game a little more than two days away, Best said he is just putting the finishing touches on his “tailgate gathering.”

“I’ve talked to other people who are interested in doing this,” he said. “I just want it to get to the point where people come to see the game and not just for the sake of being social.”

Danny Horne
bravestcu3116@mindspring.com

A very pleased volleyball team arrived home from this past weekend’s Tiger Invitational at the University of Missouri—Columbia to get some rest for the week ahead of them.

The Frogs left the tournament with three victories against Marquette, Morgan State and Arkansas State, and a loss to Missouri. The tournament improved the team’s record to 5-4.

“We’ve been very close in some of the first couple games of the season,” junior setter Lindsay Hayes said. “Those games were really close and fortunately we all held it together during the this last tournament.”
Hayes set a new all-time assists record, tallying a total of 2,310, following the Tiger Invitational. Hayes was in need of 271 assists at the start of the season to break Annie Gant’s previous record of 2,289. Hayes currently has 2,359 assists.

“Lindsay played exceptionally,” assistant volleyball coach Barbara Kovacs said. “She has really proven to be our quarterback. She is the boss out there on the court.”

Kovacs said last Wednesday’s nose surgery was successful for Hayes, and it has not hurt how she has played.

This was proven when Hayes, as well as senior outside hitter Amy Atamanczuk, were both named to the Tiger Invitational’s all-tournament team.

“I could not have accomplished any of this without my team behind me,” Atamanczuk said.

This was the second all-tournament team Atamanczuk has been named to this season. The first was at the Miami JustBalls.com Classic.

Head Coach Sandy Troudt said Hayes and Atamanczuk, as well as sophomore outside hitter and defensive specialist Jennifer Cuca, had good attack percentage numbers during Tuesday night’s match at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum against Texas-Arlington.

TCU defeated UTA in four games. It was the Frogs first win against the Mavericks, as well as their first home win in Daniel-Meyer Coliseum this season. The Frogs also put their record over .500 in September for the first time since 1997.

“I can see that we keep great focus throughout our games, especially when we play at home,” assistant coach Chris Rudiger said. “We have to keep control of ourselves and then we’ll be okay, like we were against UTA.”

Troudt said although UTA has a fairly new program, they are a talented team. She said the Mavericks’ current record of 1-6 isn’t an indication of how well they play.

After the Frogs recovered from a 15-10 loss in the first game, TCU dominated the rest of the match with victories in the next three games, 15-8,15-6,15-7.

Tuesday night was only the second home match of the year and Troudt said it’s important for the Frogs to defend their home court.

Friday and Saturday the Frogs host the TCU Invitational which will include San Francisco, Tulane, Montana State, and Cal-State Fullerton. All matches will be played at the Rickel Building.

Colleen Casey
c.m.casey@student.tcu.edu

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