Sept. 9, 2007

Final Stats

Contact: Brian McCann

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Roshard Gilbert scored in the 24th minute and goalkeeper Nick Harpel made six saves as Cleveland State and Kentucky battled through two overtimes to a 1-1 tie on Sunday afternoon at the UK Soccer Complex.

The tie drops CSU's record to 2-1-1 while Kentucky, which was 14-5-2 a year ago, dropped to 1-2-1.

"I should be happy that we went on the road this afternoon and tied a team like Kentucky, but I'm not," CSU head coach Ali Kazemaini said. "This match should have been done and over with long before overtime. We had two or three point blank easy scoring opportunities in the first half that we just didn't convert. Otherwise, this would have been a 2-3 goal game.

"By not converting our chances, we left the door open for Kentucky to challenge us in the second half, which they did. Once they evened the score, we fought hard and still had a couple of chances to win in regulation that we didn't take advantage of.

"This team is starting to come together. Our defense is working well together and we are creating more offensive opportunities," Kazemaini said.

The Vikings opened the scoring in the contest at the 23:10 mark when Gilbert scored into an empty net after Marco DiFranco threaded the needle through the box on a pass. DiFranco started the play on the left side, using a give-and-go with George Kephart to break loose and head in on goal. With the defense reacting to him, DiFranco slid a pass across the box to Gilbert, who was left unmarked on the back post and easily netted his first goal of the season.

The lead held until the 57:40 mark when Kentucky evened the match on a Tim Crone goal. The play started when Jirijoonas Kanth played a long ball ahead to Crone, who was able to get his head on the ball enough to slip it past a charging Nick Harpel and into the net.

The goal, the first allowed by Harpel this year, ended his scoreless streak at 282:40.

Neither team could score during the remainder of regulation, forcing a pair of 10-minute overtime sessions that also went scoreless.

"We had a couple of chances in overtime, but by then the defense had dropped back and was really trying to limit the opportunities of advancing the ball towards the goal," Kazemaini said.

Cleveland State was out-shot in the contest, 15-12, with Wildcat netminder Dan Williams making seven saves.

The Vikings will continue their five-match road trek when they play Cal State Northridge and Cal Poly this week at the UNLV adidas Invitational in Las Vegas, Nevada.