The Randolph College men’s soccer team’s history-making journey through the NCAA Tournament ended Friday night as the University of Texas-Tyler got an overtime goal from Elijah Shipman in a 2-1 decision at the University of Redlands.
The WildCats end the season with a program record 18 wins, falling in only six contests. Randolph also won its first ODAC title, had a league player of the year in sophomore Corey Sindle and coach Bryan Waggoner was tabbed as the conference coach of the year.
The WildCats took the game’s first lead on a corner kick, its only corner of the game. Sophomore Nick Cornell lofted a ball to the back post, where Will Wolf headed it off the goalie and to the foot of junior Tyler Gilchrist (Liberty) who tapped it in for the 1-0 lead.
After the intermission, UTT tied the contest with just under 10 minutes into the second half as Victor Almendariz left-footed a shot into the right netting off a Shipman pass.
In the waning moments of the second half, Sindle played a ball for a charging Fiifi Atta-Otoo, who was in on goal alone. A Patriot defender grabbed the jersey of Atta-Otoo in the box and pulled him back, allowing a second defender to knock the ball out-of-bounds. The linesman raised his flag for a foul but the middle official called nothing.
That set up overtime, where Shipman corralled a rebound off an Alonso Rivera shot and buried it past a diving Carter Smith to put the Patriots in the sectional final. Randolph was out-shot 20-10, but Smith made seven saves to keep the game tight.
Advertisement