For a second straight season, a nationally-ranked Dalton State College team has fallen in the Southern States Athletic Conference men’s soccer tournament semifinals.
The No. 2 Roadrunners — both nationally and in the SSAC — fell 2-1 in the SSAC semifinals Wednesday night in Montgomery, Alabama, to third-seeded and 10th-ranked William Carey.
A semifinal loss to Life a season ago handed top-ranked DSC its first loss of the season. Wednesday’s loss was the second of the season for Dalton State, who will have to rely on a seemingly-likely at-large bid to advance to the NAIA National Championship tournament.
William Carey (16-3-1) will advance to face top-seeded Mobile in the SSAC finals Friday night.
Dalton State (12-2-3) had given up two goals in a game just once before this season — a 2-2 draw with Life — but the Roadrunners found themselves down 2-0 for the first time all year early in the second half.
After 43 minutes of the first half went by without any score, William Carey went up 1-0 with just 1:29 left in the first half.
Dalton State keeper slapped away a shot by William Carey’s Alessandro Villareal, but the ball found its way right to Jack Greenwood, who deposited it in the left corner of the net while Barrueta was still getting up in the right.
Dalton State’s Jack Stainrod, who formerly played for William Carey, had the best Roadrunner look at a goal in the first half, but a shot from the box went a little wide.
Exactly nine minutes into the second half, William Carey scored its second goal on the defense that had allowed just six goals all season.
A cross pass by Djordje Djukovic perfectly hit a charging Jamie Wynn, and Wynn tapped in for the goal that made it 2-0.
As the clock hit 30 minutes, then 20, 10 and five to play without a change in in score, the task got harder for the Roadrunners, but Guilherme Franca got the first leg of the potential late comeback when he got the Roadrunners on the board for the first time with just 3:18 left.
Josh Ramos was shoved down on an attack just outside the penalty box. Franca took the free kick from straight on and put it under a jumping wall of defenders to cut the score to 2-1.
The second leg of the miracle never came, as the Roadrunners were unable to get another look at the goal in the dwindling minutes.
William Carey led the shooting battle just 10-9 in the game, but had a 7-2 advantage in shots on goal. Barrueta tallied five saves to keep the Roadrunners in it.
Rasmus Andersson had the only other shot on goal for the Roadrunners. It came in the 78th minute, just a few minutes before Franca’s goal.