Tritons Stumble, but Win

It’s not often a team gives away three goals and wins a soccer game, much less an NCAA Division III playoff game. But that’s what UC San Diego got away with Saturday, sneaking past Wisconsin-Oshkosh, 5-4, on penalty shots.

So today the Tritons will retake the UCSD field for a national quarterfinal match against MacMurray feeling lucky to have stumbled and still advance.

No one feels more lucky than goalie Mike Madden, who atoned for two big errors during the penalty shots phase.

The first error came with six minutes to go when Madden ventured too far off his line in an attempt to field a free kick from just inside the midfield stripe. He misjudged the kick taken by Chad Gavin, and it sailed over his head and into the empty net, giving Oshkosh a 3-3 tie.

That pushed the teams into overtime, during which Madden, still feeling the guilt of letting the game get that far, let a crossing pass slip through his hands. The ball continued toward the far post where Eliot Siegman ran onto it and tucked it into the goal.

“I don’t even want to talk about that one,” Madden said. “I should have forgot about the first one. But I didn’t, and it affected my play.”

Later, after Madden had been relieved by Jed Brintzenhoff, the Tritons helped erase Madden’s misadventures by tying it at 4-4.

Chris Romey started the sequence with a long throw-in to the middle of the field. After bouncing off an Oshkosh player, the ball eventually made its way to UCSD’s Chris Hanssen, who tried looping a pass to a teammate at the far post, but was amazed to watch it instead plunk down inside the goal.

“I guess I was just lucky,” Hanssen said. “Hey, we had enough bad luck during the game that we were entitled to some good luck.”

UCSD allowed one other gift goal, this one came four minutes into the game when a UCSD defender tried passing the ball back to Madden, only it was a weak pass and Oshkosh’s Jason Cottone got to it first, striking it into the far corner for a 1-0 lead.

But none of that mattered after Madden was reinserted into the game before the third round of penalty kicks.

No one had missed to that point, so the game remained tied. And neither shooter missed during the third round, either.

Still, Madden was dwelling on Oshkosh’s third and fourth goals.

“They were still in my mind,” Madden said, “But only because I wanted to redeem myself.”

He got that chance in the fourth round as Mark Pawlyshyn, Oshkosh’s top offensive performer during the season, approached the ball and struck it toward the right post. Madden dived that way and was able to get his fingers on the ball to deflect it wide.

“He’s going to be starting in goal (today),” Coach Derek Armstrong said about Madden. “I wanted to start him for the penalty shots, but the boys talked me out of it. Mike owed me one and he came through. When a guy’s a good guy and you put him on the line, he’ll come through.”