By Gary Fauber
Things are decidedly more positive now for the MSU men’s soccer team than they were at the beginning of the season.
A new coach and several newcomers on the field made for a difficult transition.
“It was a tough start,” first-year coach Cesar Quintero said. “There has been a lot of progression, from the beginning to the middle and now at the end of the season. We have learned so much. It’s been tough, with a new coach, young players and new guys. We started fresh and have made it a point to succeed.”
Mission accomplished.
The Cougars have a losing record overall at 7-8, but they are 3-1 in the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. That puts them in a three-way tie with Asbury and Brescia, but MSU was declared the regular-season conference champion because it had the better overall record.
That means MSU will host the KIAC postseason tournament beginning Friday. The Cougars will play either Berea or Cincinnati Christian at noon (those teams play at 3 p.m. today), while Asbury and Brescia square off at 2:30 p.m.
The championship game is set for 1 p.m. Saturday.
The tournament will be played at the East River Soccer Complex in Bluefield. Beckley’s YMCA Youth Sports Complex, the Cougars’ usual home, will be busy hosting the state high school tournament on the same days.
“Unfortunately, we could not play it here,” Quintero said. “We will go to Bluefield and try to do the same job.”
MSU played one game at East River this season, losing to Bluefield College on Sept. 16. But that wasn’t Quintero’s usual squad wearing the blue and white.
While playing in a tournament at Calumet College of St. Joseph in Indiana, the Cougars were involved with an altercation that resulted in an on-field melee. As a result of the altercation, the entire MSU team was suspended for two games.
MSU students were recruited to fill a team for those two games, against Concord and Bluefield.
“The university worked with us to get us through those two games,” Quintero said. “We built a team with anybody we could find at the university, different athletes at the school. They really banded together and helped us.”
Quintero is embarrassed by the situation, but chalks it up as a definite learning experience.
“We learned that a lot of things can happen,” he said. “You can’t always be proud of things, but you’ve got to grow as a person and overcome it.
“You can always learn something.”
— E-mail: gfauber@
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