Big Saves In Shootout Win Over Terps
HOOVER, Ala. — The endings couldn’t have been any different for Tomas Gomez.
On the first night, the Georgetown University goalkeeper took center stage, stopping the University of Maryland’s final two penalty kicks in the shootout and then racing to the far corner of Regions Park with a slide that would have made the hosts proud.
Less than 48 hours later, Gomez could only sit and watch as the Indiana University men’s soccer team (16-5-3) celebrated its 1-0 victory on Dec. 9 in the Men’s College Cup for the program’s eighth national championship.
Gomez sat and watched the proceedings before pulling his jersey over his face and walking toward midfield. He knelt down again and bent at the waist in the center of the field. Teammate Cole Seiler came over to provide solace and to put an arm around him. Georgetown coach Brian Wiese followed suit and took a moment to talk to his sophomore goalkeeper.
As the celebration continued, Gomez worked his way to the dressing room, stopping for a minute with a teammate to sign autographs for fans before taking his final steps off a field for the season.
The memories are bound to stay with Gomez for a while. Unfortunately, the memory of Nikita Kotlov’s ninth goal of the season in the 64th minute likely will prove to be a little more haunting.
“It’s hard on Tomas because he’ll take a lot of responsibility for that,” Wiese said. “It’s a ball that as the goalkeeper if you come for it you have to take it. He just missed it and let them head it back for an easy finish.”
Against the run of play, Patrick Doody started the game-winning sequence with a cross from the left side. The ball sailed to the back post, where two Georgetown defenders appeared to have Indiana’s Eriq Zavaleta sandwiched. Gomez also appeared to have the play covered, but he and Jimmy Nealis apparently misread each other. Zavaleta took advantage by getting a head on the ball and re-directing it to the middle of the box for Kotlov, who tucked it home.
“I think Patrick deserves a lot of credit,” Kotlov said. “As you can tell from the last three games, he has assisted on a cross and this game was just like that. He made a great run, gets to the ball, sees me, and just makes it really easy for me. I just put it away.”
Zavaleta said the ball drifted in the air for quite a while. He said his goal was to get the ball down to give Kotlov a chance to make a play.
“The keeper was pretty hesitant and kind of got in no man’s land,” Zavaleta said. “I was at a tough angle to finish it, but I saw Nikita running into the box. … It was a tremendous effort by him to get that far into the box and finish it off.”
Georgetown (19-4-3) still had chances to get the equalizer, but Ian Christianson’s header in the final minute deflected off the back side of the post.
The result was a bitter pill for Georgetown, which was playing in its first national title game. It was coming off a thrilling 4-3 victory against the University of Maryland in a shootout on Dec. 7. The teams played to a 4-4 tie through 90 minutes of regulation and 20 minutes of overtime.
Gomez saved his best for last, stopping Taylor Kemp with a diving save to his right on Maryland’s fourth penalty kick. After a conversion by Nealis gave the Hoyas a 4-3 advantage, Gomez went to his left to deny Helge Leikvang and then was off to the races.
He sprinted from the left side of the field all the way to other end and slid into the upper corner flag area.
Gomez said he learned valuable lessons from his performance in a 4-2 shootout victory against Syracuse University in the second round of the NCAA tournament. He said the fact that he was leaving his line early before each kick might have allowed Syracuse players to detect which way he was going to go. As a result, he held his arms straight up before each Maryland player attempted a shot in an attempt to disguise his intentions and tried not to flinch.
“Coach (Brian) Gill told me to make sure you stand because they are going to look for (movement),” said Gomez, who had his fingers and thumbs wrapped under his goalkeeper’s gloves. He said he had torn ligaments in both thumbs. He also wore a shoulder harness to protect him after he dislocated his shoulder in the middle of the season. “When they see that, it’s like you get more in your head if you’re going the right way then if you’re going the right way.
“I just (held my arms straight up) to be big in that big goal. It just works. … On the last one, I knew it was the center back who had gone in. I just knew if I stayed on the line and waited, I knew he was going to left. When I got it, it was unreal. I didn’t know the game was over. I looked and everyone was running and I just took off. I could have kept going.”
Against Indiana, Wiese acknowledged the extra time and the pace of that match, which he said was “110 minutes at 110 mph,” contributed to his team appearing not to be as sharp as it was in the national semifinal.
“I think Indiana played incredibly up-tempo,” Wiese said. “They pressed us really, really well. Tactics aside, they kind of won the midfield. They were sharper to the ball, they were picking up seconds, and they were very good from an energy point of view. We didn’t have the legs we normally have, from my point of view.
“When we were able to get it and switch the ball we were having our most success. That started coming a little better in the second half. As the game wore on, I think (senior defender) Tommy Muller was immense handling Zavaleta. That was very important for us as the half wore on to be able to keep it and to not let them to get out of it, which they were able to do pretty well in the first half.”
That was little consolation for Gomez, who was the hero in the shootout. It also didn’t help that the game-winning goal happened to play out in slow motion, according to Wiese, and that a few things happened around it, as well, he said, that proved to be the difference.
“It was a frustrating goal to lose because I think that was a time when I think things were going OK,” Wiese said. “But that’s the sport we play. We could have been down a couple, maybe, at halftime, but we weren’t. When things start going better, that’s when we lose the goal.
“You turn right around and talk about Tomas Gomez, he made some unbelievable saves for us today, let alone the season. He made some big-time saves so we’re sitting here right now. Even today, he put us in position to give us a chance at the end. … I think he played terrificly well for us.”