{"id":51642,"date":"2011-12-02T12:54:20","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T17:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=51642"},"modified":"2011-12-05T09:03:10","modified_gmt":"2011-12-05T14:03:10","slug":"men%e2%80%99s-soccer-aims-for-final-four-in-2011-college-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/12\/men%e2%80%99s-soccer-aims-for-final-four-in-2011-college-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Men\u2019s Soccer Aims for Final Four in 2011 College Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mamadou<\/a>
Mamadou Doudou Diouf, sophomore forward, plays against James Madison University. (Athletic Communications Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Coming into the 2011 season, head men\u2019s soccer coach Ray Reid wanted to challenge his team with a schedule filled with nationally-ranked opponents, knowing conference games in the increasingly competitive Big East would also help prepare the Huskies for the possibility of a deep postseason run.<\/p>\n

As the No. 5\/5 Huskies (19-3-2) prepare to host No. 14\/19 Charlotte (16-4-2) for their sold-out quarterfinal match on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Joseph J. Morrone Stadium, Reid is seeing the results he wanted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought our guys played playoff soccer,\u201d Reid said after the team prevailed 3-0 over James Madison last weekend to advance to the quarterfinals. \u201cWe played good enough to win, were pretty smart. They were very good in practice all week and they were very focused the whole week. I was very proud of them. Our guys were very resilient. That\u2019s all I can ask.\u201d<\/p>\n

The winner on Sunday advances to the 2011 College Cup, soccer\u2019s Final Four, Dec. 9-11 in Hoover, Ala., hosted by the University of Alabama- Birmingham. Two other Big East teams have advanced to the Elite Eight. South Florida (14-3-4) will face Creighton (20-2) on Saturday with the winner earning the semifinal against the UConn-Charlotte victor. In the other bracket, Louisville (14-6-2) faces UCLA (17-4-1) on Saturday, with the winner advancing to the semifinal against North Carolina (19-2-2) or St. Mary\u2019s of California (11-6-5).<\/p>\n

UConn is making its 14th consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance, after going out the past two seasons on games determined by penalty kicks. The last time the Huskies reached the semifinals was in 2000, the year Reid led them to the national title. The Huskies also won the 1981 NCAA Championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Big East season \u2013 all the games \u2013 only helped us,\u201d says junior defender\/midfielder Jossimar Sanchez \u201913 (ENG). \u201cWe had one of the toughest schedules since I\u2019ve been here. We know we can deal with hard games. It\u2019s only going to help us during the postseason.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlotte reached the quarterfinal round with a 1-0 victory over defending champions Akron. The 49ers have outscored their opponents 40-19 on the season, including eight shutouts by redshirt sophomore goalkeeper Klay Davis, who has a goals against average of 0.83.<\/p>\n

On offense, Charlotte is led by freshman forward Giuseppe Gentile, the Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year, who scored 20 points on 9 goals and 2 assists. Senior forward Evan James scored 17 points on 5 goals and 7 assists and junior forward Donnie Smith had 13 points on 5 goals and 3 assists on the year. The 49ers enter the game tied with the most goals scored in the 2011 NCAA tournament after three rounds.<\/p>\n

The 49rs have an RPI ranking of 17, compared with the Huskies\u2019 No. 3 RPI, and have generated more shots and scoring against the opposition in the second period during the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cCharlotte is a very good team. They\u2019ll be organized. They\u2019ll be tough defensively. They\u2019re well coached,\u201d says Reid. \u201cThey\u2019re good in the second half; we\u2019ve got to be aware of it. It will be a real test. We\u2019re working on polishing up a few things. The kids have been disciplined and played hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Huskies continue to rely on the leadership of senior forward Tony Cascio \u201912 (CLAS) and junior Carlos Alvarez \u201913 (CLAS), who each had an assist and a goal against James Madison, and sophomore Mamadou Doudou Diouf \u201914 (CLAS), the team\u2019s leading scorer, on offense.<\/p>\n

Junior forward Stephane Diop \u201913 (CLAS) says the Huskies have demonstrated through their aggressive play this season that they have the focus and determination to win the close games that were problematic last year in the postseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most exciting thing for me is just the challenge,\u201d Diop says. \u201cPeople have been saying we\u2019re not tough enough; we can\u2019t win elimination games. As a team, coming from a couple of hiccups and overcoming all that and winning a lot of road games is really exciting. We just want to keep doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freshman goalkeeper Andre Blake \u201915 (CLAS) has been the anchor of a Huskies defense that has registered a team record 16 shutouts, including a nine-game shutout streak in 2011. He actively directs the defense, using his experience in international play as a member of the U-17 and U-20 Jamaican National Teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very excited knowing we\u2019re this far in the tournament,\u201d he says. \u201cHard work doesn\u2019t go unnoticed. Whenever you put in the hard work, you\u2019re going get rewarded. These games are normal for us because of the schedule we played. We\u2019re ready for anything; PKs [penalty kicks], whatever. We\u2019ve just got to stay focused. The key is trust and communication. The guys trust me and I trust them. We\u2019ve developed good communication. That\u2019s working well for us right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The game can be heard live at WHUS.org \u2013 91.7 FM and can be viewed live via a free webstream at UConnhuskies.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Huskies host Charlotte at Morrone Stadium on Sunday, with a trip to the 2011 College Cup on the line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":51582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-51642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-24 14:05:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51642"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51678,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51642\/revisions\/51678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/51582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51642"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=51642"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=51642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}