Franklin Arrives in Time to Help SDSU Top USD
Willie Franklin wasn’t even enrolled at San Diego State when the fall semester began three weeks ago.
Saturday night against the University of San Diego, Franklin came off the bench late in the second half, replaced leading scorer Brian Craft-Negrete, and drilled home an unlikely goal with 4 minutes, 15 seconds remaining to give SDSU an improbable 1-0 victory in front of a record 3,500 soccer fans in Torero Stadium.
Franklin is a 19-year-old freshman from Everett, Wash., who moved to San Diego a year ago but couldn’t afford out-of-state tuition at SDSU. So he sat out last season, playing instead for a local club team. He didn’t manage to register this fall until the day after the semester began.
Because of that, Franklin was ineligible for the Aztecs’ first game, a 3-1 overtime victory over Division III Cal State San Bernardino, and he played sparingly and out-of-position in the next two.
Saturday, Franklin’s timing and positioning could not have been better.
He had been in for about 10 minutes before he grabbed a deflection off Aztec defender Alex Streicek inside the Torero box and drilled a 13-yard shot past helpless goalie Tom Tate into the right side of the net.
“I thought their guy was going to clear it out,” Franklin said. “I saw him going after it, and as he touched it, I took it off his foot. The keeper came out, and I just slotted it to the right.”
Tate correctly said that he never had a chance. “It was off my line,” he said. “I thought Alex was going to clear it.”
It was not only Franklin’s first goal, it was the first allowed by USD (2-1) this season. And the Toreros will not soon forget it.
This was supposed to be the year they finally beat the Aztecs, who improved to 4-0 and are now 9-0-2 against USD.
The Toreros, nationally ranked (15th) and coming off both their best season ever (16-3-5) and their first NCAA playoff appearance, had outscored two opponents this year, 9-0, and outshot them, 36-4.
“We knew this was a huge game,” Franklin said. “I just didn’t think I’d be the guy to decide it like that. You dream about moments like that.”
As both coaches--SDSU’s Chuck Clegg and USD’s Seamus McFadden--predicted, neither team mustered much cohesiveness in the first half.
“When you play a game like this where there’s so much emotion, sometimes the game doesn’t look too aesthetic,” McFadden said.
That was indeed the case early on.
USD outshot SDSU, 6-4, in the half, but the Aztecs had two of the best opportunities.
Senior forward Craft-Negrete, SDSU’s leading scorer out of El Cajon Valley High, took a tap from Dain DeForest 15 yards out and to the left of the goal, but Craft-Negrete’s shot was wide. Then, about 10 minutes later, Bill Demke, the Aztec’s second-leading scorer, had a breakaway to the left of the goal interrupted by a hustling and sliding Kevin Arthur.
With the Aztecs tightly marking USD’s forwards early, the Toreros’ biggest opportunities didn’t come until the second half. They were, however, golden.
Junior Sean Pinnell, coming off his first career hat trick on Tuesday in an 8-0 victory over Point Loma Nazarene, managed to get ahold of a loose ball in front of Aztec goalie Dan Dalzochio. Pinnell, who is left-footed, got off a left-footed shot from eight yards out, but a charging and diving Dalzochio knocked it away.
Midway through the second half, Torero midfielder Kevin Legg, a sophomore transfer from UC San Diego, got the ball past Dalzochio on the left wing, but his hurry-up shot sailed wide left.